§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health when the major investment in new hospital facilities at the Freeman and RVI hospitals Newcastle was first accepted in his Department's programme; when it was decided to use PFI finance; how many business cases have subsequently been submitted; and how many health authorities had to be signed up to the business case on each occasion. [153194]
§ Mr. DenhamThe Newcastle Strategic Review (NSR), as a strategy, was approved by Ministers in December 1993. In the mid-1990s the centralisation of obstetrics and gynaecology services (which had previously been fragmented) onto the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) site took place. In addition there was a £11 million public sector investment to centralise ophthalmology services also onto the RVI site. In 1995 the first of the "fast track" public capital allocations were made (which finally totalled £8.4 million) to facilitate further movement of acute services off the Newcastle general hospital site. Confirmation of the support to larger scale capital investment at RVI and Freeman to complete the implementation of the NSR was provided by the approval of the second wave strategic outline case (SOC) in April 1998, revisions to which were approved in September 1999.
The second wave SOC envisaged most of the capital investment being provided under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). A similar position applied in the subsequent revised SOC proposals. This was in line with practice for almost all major hospital schemes referred to the Capital Prioritisation Advisory Group.
Complete consultation drafts (dated February 2000) of the Outline Business Cases (OBC) for the PFI construction of new facilities on the Freeman and RVI hospital sites were submitted to the Northern and Yorkshire Regional Office in spring 2000. Following the final confirmation of purchaser support these were subsequently revised and the final version of the OBC were submitted to the regional office in February 2001 and are now under assessment.
Complete consultation drafts of the business case for the £15.3 million publicly funded enabling schemes for the NSR were submitted to the Regional Office in March 2000 and June 2000. The definitive version was submitted in October 2000 following support and approved in November 2000.
A full business case for the PFI replacement of the existing Energy Centre at the RVI was approved in December 2000. This scheme had not been a part of the NSR SOC.
596WFor both the main NSR scheme and its enabling works scheme five health authorities were signed up (Newcastle and North Tyneside, Northumberland, Gateshead and South Tyneside, Sunderland and County Durham) and a further two (Tees and North Cumbria) were consulted.