Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group (Hansard, 5 December 1997)

§ Mr. Milburn

I am today announcing the establishment of the National Health Service Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group (CPAG). The Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group will assist Ministers to prioritise on a national basis all future major NHS capital projects worth over £25 million. The terms of reference and membership of the group have been placed in the Library.

In future, major capital projects will take place where they are most needed. The development of major schemes will be determined on a national basis, in response to patients' needs, as it should be, not, as it has been, on the basis of market forces, regardless of the wider interests of patients or the NHS.

The Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group's first exercise will be to prioritise those projects wishing to go forward in the next wave of the Private Finance Initiative, following on from the 15 major PFI hospital projects already given the go-ahead. Guidance is being issued today to the NHS Executive regional offices on this process, and all NHS regional offices will examine, with their local NHS trusts and health authorities, the major proposals in their region, to determine which meet the greatest health service need. Each regional office will then be responsible for submitting two schemes to the Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group for national prioritisation and recommendation to Ministers. I plan to announce the next wave of major PFI schemes next spring.

The prioritisation process will be as open and fair as possible. Details of the criteria for assessing health service need that will be used by the regional offices and CPAG have been placed in the Library.

Projects which meet a clear need but are not suitable for PFI will be considered alongside other proposals, in a separate prioritisation exercise next summer for the limited amount of public capital available.

The establishment of the NHS Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group and the launch of the second tranche of major capital schemes clearly demonstrate our commitment to modernising the NHS, and to creating a 376W genuinely national heath service, with new hospitals built where they are needed most and where they will deliver the greatest benefit to patients.