PFI in the NHS (Private finance initiative in the UK national health service)

The National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in Britain are currently in a state of decay following many years of underinvestment in the estate. The NHS urgently requires billions of pounds of investment ranging from total hospital new builds to small refurbishment of existing facilities. The previous Conservative government put forward the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) as the procurement mechanism to address this problem. The new Labour government currently appear to be committing themselves to the same approach. PFI project sponsors have spent upwards of 30m bidding for around 30 major PFI schemes. Despite this, by the time of the UK election in May 1997 not one scheme had reached financial close and many sponsors were expressing their disillusionment with the process. Unlike PFI on other Government infrastructure and service schemes, each PFI hospital is tendered by a separate Trust with their own limited budgets. Many Trusts have demanded schemes without realising that they cannot afford them and whilst these schemes may work out cheaper than publicly financed hospitals over 30 years or more, charges are higher in the early years. This is primarily due to the market for loans, the conditions attached to these loans in terms of repayment periods and cover ratios, and the requirement of the sponsors to generate a reasonable return on their investment. This paper discusses the major issues and analyses some of the technical financial problems surrounding the PFI in the NHS. The authors draw on practical experience of financial structuring and modelling hospital projects to build a generic model to analyse NHS PFI economics.