[4]

4.  Is the experience of the NNUH unusual or is it typical of PFI projects?

The NNUH may have been slightly unusual inasmuch as it seems to have been even more expensive than other PFI hospitals. It was one of the first PFI hospitals and it may be that its cost of capital was even higher than for other PFI hospitals. It was financed initially through bank borrowing and when a refinancing in 2003 was effected and the contract was changed, the NNUH received only about a quarter of the refinancing gain. The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has referred to this as the unacceptable face of capitalism (see Edwards C, June 2009, 95).

At the same time, saying that the NNUH is unusual could be a little misleading because the research done on other hospitals suggest that most, if not all, PFI projects have been at much higher cost than publicly-financed ones and have experienced the other problems set out in my answer to question 1 above (see also Liebe and Pollock, 2009 and Hellowell and Pollock, 2009).