Private Finance Initiative

HC Deb 16 February 1998 vol 306 cc491-2W

Dr. Brand

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assumption concerning private sector income has been made in(a) each PFI contract approved and (b) each PFI contract being planned. [28309]

Mr. Milburn

Two major acute Private Finance Initiative schemes involving private beds—Norfolk and Norwich Health Care National Health Service Trust and South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust—have reached financial close; their contracts include assumptions about income from these beds. Four other major acute PFI schemes are proposing to include private beds, but these projects have not yet reached financial close and assumptions about income from these beds is still subject to negotiations.

Information is not held centrally on assumptions concerning income from private beds in smaller scale (capital value of £10 million or less) and non-acute PFI schemes.

The assumptions in the PFI contracts about income from private beds at Norfolk and Norwich Health Care NHS Trust and South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust are as follows:

Norfolk and Norwich The new PFI hospital will include a private patients ward with 20 beds. Patients will be treated by NHS staff and use NHS facilities for which the trust receives a fee. The trust anticipates that income from these beds will be approximately £2.6 million at 1996–97 prices.

South Buckinghamshire A private patient operator will lease an area of the new building at High Wycombe from the trust's consortium (United Healthcare) and will pay for the construction of a private patients unit. The trust will receive an income of £100,000 per annum from private beds which will be operated by the private patient operator, rising to a maximum of £200,000 as the operator's turnover increases. In addition, the trust will receive income from the use of NHS clinical and other NHS services by the private sector operator.