- Conference
- 2022 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 12 November 2021
- Decision
- Carried
The respected think-tank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in Autumn 2019 produced a headline “Hospitals face £80bn bill due to toxic PFI Legacy” with a report detailing;
1) Prior to COVID-19, the health service faces a PFI “postcode lottery” as some trusts faced spending up to £1 in every £6 on PFI payments with worrying consequences for patient safety.
2) As a result, long term investment in building and lifesaving technology has been restricted with safety hazard, sewage leaks and falling ceilings now major risks at hospitals
In 2019, PFI schemes to fund capital spending cost Trusts around £2.1 billion in repayments and at the time were calculated rising to more than £2.5bn by 2030, thereby diverting funds away from patient services.
The IPPR reported there are £3bn of critical maintenance issues unsolved as highlighted in point 2 above.
It very likely during the last 2 years of Covid, the PFI bill has grown since the report.
Conference calls on the Health Group Service Executive.
A) Highlight these gross PFI repayments/percentages and how they are, and will continue to undermine the funding of the NHS.
B) To contact NHS Unison Branch Secretaries in PFI Trusts/Hospitals, where these toxic PFI payments have resulted in understaffing, restructuring, down grading, redundancies and Health and Safety issues in areas such as Accident and Emergency, Community Nursing and Surgeries. The HGSE to support branches in requesting the information from their Trusts/Hospitals to support the HGSE campaign.
C) To liaise with other Unison Key stake holders such as Unison Labour Link campaigning for:-
i) A review of these NHS PFI debts – to start reducing the payments with the aim of the NHS PFI debts to be written off
ii) To continue the call for the NHS PFI contracts to be scrapped