1.18 The Trust currently pays annual payments of £17.2 million to THC Dartford under the PFI contract. Of this £10.6 million relates to payments for THC Dartford making the hospital facilities available for use. The balance of £6.6 million is for facilities management services such as catering, cleaning, laundry and portering, provided by subcontractors to THC Dartford.
1.19 There has only been one occasion where a shortfall in THC Dartford's performance necessitated a financial deduction by the Trust for a failure in keeping the hospital facilities available for use. In February 2002 there were electrical failures which resulted in Theatre 2 being unavailable for 48 hours and Theatre 3 for 72 hours. Patients were not put at risk since the operations planned to take place in these theatres were rescheduled to other theatres at the hospital which had spare capacity at the time. The Trust made a deduction of £4,448.9
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9 This accounted for 0.4% of the unitary payment for that month.