Health sector: New hospitals scheme given mixed reception

Senior facilities managers in the health sector have reacted with a mix of views to the Department of Health's announcement that it has approved a £3.1 billion hospital-building programme.

Health secretary Alan Milburn said that work on 12 of the 29 approved new hospital building projects would start within the year, many as part of the private finance initiative.

Commenting on the announcement, Chris Parsons, director of facilities at Durham County Hospital, said he believed the programme would lead to improved services at a lower cost.

'Many hospital buildings have reached the end of their shelf life,' he said, 'and we are spending vast amounts of money on just standing still. This money can be used on new materials, reducing maintenance costs and generally improving our hospitals.'

Parsons said the PFI projects would take pressure off in-house facilities managers by passing responsibility to a private contractor.

He said the in-house facilities managers in larger-scale projects would benefit most because they would be involved in the more cost-effective projects. 'If the PFI has a value below £10 million, it is often not economical; above that, it is more effective,' said Parsons.

But Bob Ellarby, chair of the Health Facilities Management Association's south-east region, had more mixed views on PFI hospitals.

'On the plus side, we have new hospitals that we would not have had without the private finance initiative.' At the same time, he added, many contractors were becoming disillusioned with PFI work after spending large sums of money on a tender, then losing to a rival bidder.

He said it was too early to judge whether PFI would work on this scale. 'I don't believe the contractors have secured the money yet,' he said. 'None of them are at financial close.'

He said that until we get PFI schemes delivered and up and running for a significant amount of time, it was impossible to say how successful it would be. 'The jury is still out at the moment,' he said.

The scheme will result in about 3,000 extra beds in the country, and 26 fast-track treatment centres to speed up care for non-urgent cases. The value of the projects ranges from £291 million for a replacement hospital in Birmingham to £28 million to relocate a hospital in Brighton.