MPs slam NHS for hospital PFI collapse

1 Feb 07
Whitehall health officials this week conceded that they have taken on board the lessons of a failed hospital development after senior MPs slammed the project's management.

02 February 2007

Whitehall health officials this week conceded that they have taken on board the lessons of a failed hospital development after senior MPs slammed the project's management.

A hard-hitting report from the Public Accounts Committee, published on January 30, attributed the collapse of the Paddington Health Campus project to bad planning and forecasting of costs by the NHS partners involved and their failure to agree on a way forward.

The PAC's finger also pointed at the DoH itself because of uncertainty over its degree of support for the scheme.

Committee chair Edward Leigh said: 'The department, in effect, left this £900m construction project to local NHS staff who were rapidly out of their depth and floundering.

'Their amateurism and incompetence in this field compounded the consequences of bad decisions made at the outset.'

The committee urged the DoH to get tough with NHS trusts whose project costs are forecast to rise by more than 10%, and demand full reappraisals.

Leigh also queried whether the department's Private Finance Unit was up to the task of supporting local NHS trust procurement teams. 'The department's hands-off attitude towards large-scale capital investment projects must be abandoned in favour of closer and sustained scrutiny,' he added.

A DoH spokesman said the department took seriously the points made by the PAC, adding that action had already been taken to learn from the mistakes of Paddington.

'The department now formally approves expensive schemes at outline stage, which should prevent such cases arising in future,' he said.

'We have tightened up checks on governance and project management, introducing an independent assessment of project risks and leadership arrangements, as well as tighter criteria for outline business cases to ensure tender costs are realistic.'

The Paddington Health Campus Scheme was an attempt to build a world-class health care facility that would replace three hospitals – St Mary's, the Royal Brompton, and Harefield – as well as addressing the configuration of specialist service provision in northwest London.

But after five years and £15m spent trying to develop a business case, the scheme collapsed as estimated costs continued to rise and timescales slipped.

PFfeb2007

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top