Letter

The risky private finance gamble

Dear healthmatters—Thanks for keeping the private finance initiative in the limelight, and for drawing attention to the long-lasting damage to the NHS which will result.

It is depressing that there has been so little public debate on this issue. After all, if the government were suddenly to annouce that Bart’s Hospital was to be sold to MacDonald’s, but that the NHS would rent back the premises, there would be uproar. Yet the PFI amounts to much the same thing. Nobody can predict the long term consequences, and it isn’t even cheaper in the short term.