Written question asked by Bill Wiggin (Conservative) on Wednesday, 14 July 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 1 September 2004. It was answered by Lord Hutton of Furness (Labour) on Wednesday, 1 September 2004 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much the Government owes to the private sector with regard to hospital building programmes in (a) England and (b) Herefordshire and Worcestershire. - Inc figures.

Answer: Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the Government owe to the private sector with regard to hospital building programmes in (a) England and (b) Herefordshire and Worcestershire. [185197] Mr. Hutton: Under the private finance initiative (PFI), national health service trusts make regular payments (unitary payments) to their private sector partner once the hospital is open; payments are subject to satisfactory performance of the contract. The total PFI unitary payments in 2003-04 were £346 million. This figure includes Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust's unitary payments of £10.5 million and £17.8 million respectively. The payments figure does not include schemes with a capital value below £10 million as information on them is not held centrally.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 424 c900W; 185197
Session: 2003-04
Subjects: Construction Hospitals Private finance initiative Worcestershire Herefordshire
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk