VATman slaps £2.3m hospital donor with huge tax bill

Entrepreneur Jimmy Thomas has called for a change in the law to ensure hospitals are exempt from the tax after he funded the refurbishment of the Ellis Ward at the Royal Marsden cancer centre, in Chelsea, west London.

The wealthy 78-year-old donated the cash in tribute to his wife Alma, who was treated at the hospital before she lost her fight with ovarian cancer in 2008. Mr Thomas, who made millions of pounds through a bingo hall empire across the East Midlands, described the VAT costs as “criminal” and said he had raised his concerns with the Prime Minister.

Mr Thomas, a Conservative party donor, said: “The fact that a world-leading hospital, at the very pinnacle of treatment excellence, should be slammed with a VAT bill just to improve facilities for essential NHS care is criminal. The law must be changed.

“The ward – which had 18 NHS beds and two private rooms – needed so much work to provide the comfort and dignity the patients so badly required, the refurbishment work was classed as a rebuild. And under the law, a rebuild is subject to VAT at 20 per cent.

“I have sat next to David Cameron at lunch and explained this atrocious state of affairs. So far, there has been no response and frankly I am tired of waiting.

“He vowed he would not take money from the sick and vulnerable to fill the financial black hole, and that’s exactly what he continues to do.”

The Ellis Ward – which provides treatment for female patients – reopens today following the completion of a one-year rebuilding project.

Mrs Thomas died on New Year’s Eve in 2008 at the age of 74. Mr Thomas, the co-founder of the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, London, praised the care given to his wife by Royal Marsden staff but said the hospital was in need of investment.

He said: “Her treatment was excellent and the staff were superb. But the facilities in which they had to work were far from what was required. There were two toilets for 16 people, a cup hook for her shower towel, and the beds were so close together doctors had to nudge a neighbouring bed out of the way to pull a privacy curtain into place.

“Alma was embarrassed for the staff at the conditions in which they had to work. At one point she took off her diamond ring and offered it to help change the facilities.”

Mr Thomas has now set up a trust to continue the fundraising effort to provide improvements at the Royal Marsden.