YP Letters: Public must say no to PFI after NHS scandal

From: Dr John Puntis, The Avenue, Roundhay, Leeds.
Do PFI deals offer the NHS value for money?Do PFI deals offer the NHS value for money?
Do PFI deals offer the NHS value for money?

The Yorkshire Post has done an excellent job in highlighting how Private Finance Initiative deals are crippling NHS hospitals (The Yorkshire Post, August 12).

Despite examples such as the final bill for Pinderfields and Pontefract Hospitals being five times what they cost to build, rather than jeopardise their jobs by criticising Department of Health policy, chief executives will happily repeat the mantra that PFI is “good value for money”.

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Far from providing state of the art facilities, PFI builders cut corners and then hold the NHS hostage over maintenance costs. Before the Grenfell Tower disaster, a number of PFI hospitals were identified as major fire risks, including Coventry and Peterborough.

PFI is a big part of the privatisation that is killing our NHS. According to HM Treasury, PFI costs at least twice as much as when projects are Government funded. In addition, public services end up no longer owned by or accountable to citizens. It is right to characterise these contracts as scandalous, with national spending on repayment and service charges now an eye-watering £3,700 every minute.

If the misjudgements of the past are not to be repeated, Government must be prepared to put money into public services. Instead, Ministers constantly mislead the public about the dire state of NHS funding, which according to NHS Clinical Commissioners is projected to fall £330m short of what is needed by 2020.

Starved of capital, trusts are left with no alternative but to resort to PFI for new building. The Tories are now implementing the Naylor report to sell off NHS assets and further expand borrowing and debt in another round of PFI-type deals. The public must say no to Naylor and demand from politicians an end to PFI, with existing contracts being renegotiated or taken over by the Treasury and the money saved put into patient care.

From: Peter Skuse, Park Drive, Huddersfield.

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THE current debate over PFI is long overdue. It is an appalling example of how politicians, civil servants and national agencies can combine to fool all of the people some of the time.

PFI originated as a dodge to keep borrowings for national 
and local infrastructure projects off the Government’s balance sheet. It was embraced enthusiastically by Messrs Blair and Brown as one of the best 
ways of funding overspending and is planned to continue – despite interest rates being at record lows.

Every PFI project should be examined immediately to see if it should be renegotiated as a matter of urgency. To spend £76m on Calderdale Hospital and now pay £26m a year is a criminal waste of taxpayers’ money.

Even worse, the deficit created by such a decision is now acknowledged to be the reason for the plan to leave an area as big as Kirklees with a 64 bed hospital.

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Even worse than that, the new plans are to be financed by PFI “because there is no public money”. What sort of money makes the repayments? Martin Barkley, the chairman of the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust, is quoted by you as saying “for that money though, the local population and staff have the benefit of being served by two new, modern fit for purpose hospitals”. Tosh. What actually happened is that the construction costs of two necessary new hospitals were financed by terribly bad value deals which have never been reviewed because renegotiation might add to public borrowing figures.

Danny Boyle was right in 2012 to highlight the NHS as possibly Britain’s greatest invention of the 20th century. What a terrible shame that the dedication and commitment of medical staff is threatened by the incompetence of those politicians, civil servants and administrators. Do what everyone else does – renegotiate the mortgage quickly.

Airport took away stress

From: Mrs S Abbott, Melbourne Road, Wakefield.

RE negative reports about Leeds Bradford Airport, I would like to say that for the first time recently I had to book special assistance for my husband.

The service provided by OCS was exemplary, my husband in his wheelchair being taken through check-in, passport control and security straight to a special lounge area.

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He was then taken onto the aircraft in a special lift and the staff really looked after us which made our flight via Jet2 to Duesseldorf stress free. The same good service was provided on our return. Not such a good service I read from Heathrow and other airports.

Firms need to act on slavery

From: Gary Craig, Emeritus Professor of Social Justice, University of York.

THREE issues stand out from the campaign against modern slavery promoted by the National Crime Agency.

One is that, despite the increasing amount of information available, most people do not understand that slavery is widespread within the UK, or if they do, don’t know how to spot it.

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Second, that modern slavery is found in every form of economic activity in the UK – food, shoes, clothing, social care, fishing, hotels, leisure and construction, for example. Third, that the requirements on companies to investigate and report on slavery in their supply chains is far too weak. It is still too easy for companies, directly or indirectly, to exploit vulnerable workers.