The Editor - The Birmingham Post
31 January 2003
Dear Sir,

Those negotiating contacts for the new Birmingham hospitals to be procured under the private finance initiative (P.F.I.) must take note of the Annual Audit Letter from the District Auditor to the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals N.H.S. Trust.

This letter confirms local people's fears and convictions obscured and denied until now_

1. "A recent review of PFI costs has highlighted that there is an annual increase in the revenue costs of the PFI contract of £1.87 million. These costs are now supported by additional income."

2. The Worcestershire Health Authority's original financial recovery plan "assumed £3 million would accrue from a reduction in bed numbers when the new hospital opened in Worcester."

3. "The lay-out of the hospital requires additional staffing."

Thus the stark facts - rapidly increasing, unaffordable costs despite a reduction in bed numbers in a hospital of uneconomic design - are all confirmed.

This is a vindication of the report by Professor Allyson Pollock and colleagues from University College London ('Deficits before Patients', June 2000), which was the subject of vicious condemnation by the Worcestershire Health Authority and the NHS Executive in the West Midlands.

Sadly, further proof of the reduction in hospital capacity and staffing is currently demonstrated by the crisis in Worcestershire Hospitals now being recognised throughout the country. Contract negotiators in Birmingham face the unenviable task of making sure that the new hospital is affordable, of adequate capacity, and of satisfactory design.

Representatives of staff groups and patients must be fully involved in its planning to ensure that it really proves to be in the best interests of NHS patients in the West Midlands, not only now but in the long term.

Dr. Richard Taylor
House of Commons