Our focus today is PFI - a.k.a Private Finance Initiatives. Today, PFIs drain an average of £2 billion from NHS Trust budgets every year. How exactly? 🤔 Here’s a little history…
Initially launched by the Conservative government in 1992, and expanded enthusiastically by the Labour government in 1997, PFIs were a method of financing public infrastructure projects via private partners. They allowed...
the government to defer public spending (albeit at a much higher cost in the long run given the debt repayments) - in effect creating a mortgage on the public sector. PFIs were used to finance a range of projects including schools & parts of the London Underground, but where…
...PFIs really took off, was our NHS. The private financier would borrow money to build a hospital 🏥 (at a higher rate than the State would be able to). Once built, the hospital was owned by that individual or consortium of private financers, who then rents it back to the NHS…
...Over the years, NHS Trusts have dealt with these crushing repayments by cutting services and closing hospitals down - ultimately affecting patient care. 🤕 One of the many reasons why privatisation harms patients. In October 2018...
...then-Chancellor Philip Hammond announced the government would no longer use PFIs but, given the typical length of PFI repayment plans (25-40 years), the last contract won’t be fully repaid until 2050 🗓️ ...
As of 2019, the NHS had only repaid £25bn of the total **£80 billion** - less than 1/3 of the final price. The NHS will carry this burden for decades to come unless action is taken now = one of many reasons we must halt + reverse #NHSPrivatisation 👇bit.ly/MP-ScrapNHSBill
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