PFI critic says contracts hit patient care

CONTRACTS like the one that secured the construction of the city's main hospital should be reopened because they are harming patient care, a senior Edinburgh academic has said.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor Allyson Pollock - a long-time critic of the deal to build the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary - said authorities had to intervene to stop more money being wasted.

She pointed out that some deals were up to 2.5 times the price of borrowing money for the government to build them.

She said: "The taxpayer and NHS patient is paying several times over the multi-billion pound government bailout of the banks, coupled with the debts incurred on PFI schemes that underpin the current reductions in public expenditure and public services.

"Cuts in NHS funding and the high cost of PFI debt charges translate into service closures and reductions in access to, and quality of, care."