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NHS Financial Crisis

The story in the Guardian today is much like an EDM I tabled over a year ago.

Hospitals such as the QE in Woolwich cause major problems for the NHS. If such hospitals are bailed out then this creates a situation where others expect to be bailed out. There is a difficulty in that the NHS Executive handles hospitals as entities. Where bad management occurs that is the fault of the management.

The truth about the QE in Woolwich is that PFI has been a major part of the financial crisis of the hospital.

The DoH has underwritten all PFI costs. The theoretical position of Monitor shoving insolvent FTs into a form of administration is a non-starter.

The problem is that a form of ineffectual private sector market system has been imposted. It is too random for the NHS to cope particularly as a process of change, but it does not have the facility to attract external risk capital because there is no potential return.

It is, therefore, destined to be an expensive problem to resolve. In the mean time we have QoF. QoF would be funny if it was not such an expensive white elephant.

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