Another minor New Labour chicken has
come home to roost:
Up to 10 ambulances had to queue outside a hospital because doctors had run out beds. Paramedics were forced to treat patients in the back of the vehicles as they waited near the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH).
NNUH was of course one of the first PFI hospitals, and the public sector was seriously taken for a ride by the contractors, who left us with the risks and the costs, so much so that Edward Leigh, the (Tory) doyen of the Public Accounts Committee, described the refinancing deal thus:
"It is hard to escape the conclusion that the public sector staff managing the project were not up to the rough and tumble of negotiating refinancing proposals with the private sector ... The unacceptable face of capitalism"
while the local MP Richard Bacon opined:
"What is shocking and unacceptable is that the Department of Health allowed a contract like this to be signed, which put the public sector in such a weak position."
There's also been the small matter of a bit of a shortfall in the money department - from
26th April last year:
The Trust Board has today received an update on the financial position for 2006/07. Following the publication of the national tariff and pay awards for 2006/07 and the welcome reinstatement of our PFI smoothing payment by the SHA, the previous projection of a £22 million financial shortfall has been reduced to £14.8 million.
The Trust is taking a range of measures to deal with this hugely challenging deficit; careful cost control, service redesign, and reducing an overall pay bill that accounts for 60 per cent of our budget. Naturally, there are very serious concerns about jobs. We believe that if we took no other action to reduce pay and other costs we would need to lose approximately 450 posts during this year.
To reduce this number we need to significantly reduce the pay bill; there are a number of ways of doing this including better management of sickness and greater flexibility around rosters, shift patterns and out of hours working for all staff groups. Inevitably there will also be job losses; we expect that a significant number of these will be lost through normal staff turnover but sadly some redundancies may be inevitable. We will endeavour to minimise these through other measures to reduce pay costs such as those set out above.
Of course, given that we've been ripped off by PFI again (what is a 'smoothing payment' anyway?), it would be nice if we actually got back the same number of beds as before. Er, no. There's an interesting
report out there from 1999 that shows how poor bed provision planning was at the time, and includes a useful
table:
Norwich Hospitals
1995/6 - 1120 beds
1996/7 - 1008 beds
Original PFI plans - 809 beds
Thankfully for the patients of Norfolk, who might well have run out of ambulances to be treated in otherwise, the hospital has since increased to 987 beds, or 88% of the number under the bloody Tories, for crying out loud. As an exercise for the reader, I'd love to know how much this cost.
The place is famously way out of town with inadequate transport links, something that Charles Clarke apparently blamed the Tories for and said (in a letter that deserves reading in the light of the last ten years of his career) he'd
try and reverse (but since PFI was the only show in town and those nasty Tories, who'dhavethoughtit, were keeping the facts from him, and anyway we can't break contracts, can we? Would cost a fortune):
I have started assembling evidence and campaigning on four aspects of the new hospital where I believe we can make a difference.
- To keep 24-hour accident and emergency facilities located in the city centre, along with some outpatient services if possible.
- To test the assumptions about bed numbers and campaign for an adequately sized hospital.
- For significantly upgraded and cheap public and private transport facilities.
- To ensure proper use of the city centre sites.
However, come opening time, too small, out in the sticks and with inadequate access, the great and the good were quick to applaud it all. Tony Blair went there to look at some digital radiology stuff in 2002, according to the suspiciously rosy wikipedia
entry. Lord Hunt, Patricia Hewitt, Rosie Winterton - they couldn't stay away either. And now they're treating patients outside. Good work, fellas. Trebles all round!
PPP / PFIÂ = Rip-Off "PFI: a
PPP / PFI = Rip-Off
"PFI: a get-rich-quick scheme?"...
http://tinyurl.com/2teh2a
Of course people have to remember how many New Labour ministers and Tory/Lib Dem MPs will take up advisory and directorships sooner or later with a lot of these companies that get awarded PPP/PFI contracts, need I say more ?.