§ Mr. WigginTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the Government owe to the private sector with regard to hospital building programmes in(a) England and (b) Herefordshire and Worcestershire. [185197]
§ Mr. HuttonUnder the private finance initiative (PFI), national health service trusts make regular payments (unitary payments) to their private sector partner once the hospital is open; payments are subject to satisfactory performance of the contract. The total PFI unitary payments in 2003–04 were £346 million. This figure includes Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust's unitary payments of £10.5 million and £17.8 million respectively.
The payments figure does not include schemes with a capital value below £10 million as information on them is not held centrally.