Nerve 13 - Private Royal

Private Royal

The last thing the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust wanted was a public debate on the Private Finance Initiative. But on 30th September, the Daily Post front-page story "We had to fund hospital privately" had Chief Exec Tony Bell OBE defending PFI(1) as the only option available to redevelop the Royal, and pointing to Government policy.

Trust executives may have been surprised by the strength of opposition to further privatisation of the NHS, shown during "consultation" meetings around the city. They had simply hoped to demonstrate public support for rebuilding rather than refurbishing the Royal. Their video made the case with a shot of leaky pipe: don't call a plumber, build a new hospital. Neither the video, the booklet, nor the opening presentations mentioned PFI.

Directors did acknowledge that the new Royal and Broadgreen combined would have fewer beds - down from 998 now (1096 in 2005/6) to 918 in 2015/6 of which 158 would be "step down" beds, which could be located in people's homes. New medical techniques and plans for Care in the Community are supposed to reduce the demand for hospital beds. No-one knows if it will turn out that way. But in Huyton a pensioner told directors they already had a bed crisis; she'd just spent thirty hours waiting for one. "Have any of you waited on a trolley?" she asked. "No," they replied. "So you don't know what you're talking about."

After the panel were grilled on PFI, the non-Executive director Graham Hollick unexpectedly divulged the scheme would cost 12.44% of projected annual Trust income. Tony Bell confirmed at Blackburne House that this figure was the capital cost. Only 5.8% of Trust income is available to meet capital costs, and the funding gap will drive the Trust into debt. It's happened with major PFI schemes around Britain. And now we're in the midst of an international banking crisis.

As the PFI story went live in the Post and Echo, Private Eye revealed another angle. Liverpool City Councillor Ron Gould (Lib Dem), Executive Member for Health Care & Safeguarding, had sent Merseyside Keep Our NHS Public a 4,000-word letter, in belated response to a briefing urging Councillors to scrutinise the plans for PFI.

Gould began "... I wanted to ensure that I had collated all the information required, so that I can respond fully to the issues you have raised" and ended "Finally, I trust I have responded to all the issues you have raised in your letter." Cllr Gould did not acknowledge that fully half the letter, including all 325 words on "PFI and Affordability", was actually written by the Royal. The Eye had obtained an internal Trust document copied verbatim into Gould's "response" and passed off as his own work.

Cllr Roz Gladden (Lab) who chairs the Health, Care and Safeguarding Select Committee later said the material in Gould's letter "has been through scrutiny on several levels". As Richie Krueger of the KONP group put it, "they couldn't scrutinise a scrutiny at a scrutinising convention".

But is Bell right to say there is "no alternative" to PFI? The alternative is public finance. Getting it depends on the strength of public opposition to PFI, and the response of healthworkers and their unions. Join us!

Merseyside Keep Our NHS Public: education.officer@unitemchs.co.uk
National website: www.keepournhspublic.com

1. "The key difference between PFI and conventional ways of providing public services is that the public does not own the asset. The authority makes an annual payment to the private company who provides the building and associated services, rather like a mortgage. A typical PFI project will be owned by a company set up specially to run the scheme." (Unison website)

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