PowerSwitch

BBC News - 26/06/12

An NHS hospital trust has been formally warned it could be declared bust - in the first case of its kind.

South London Healthcare, which runs three hospitals, had debts of £69m at the start of the financial year.

The health secretary has told the trust an administrator could be brought in within weeks. The trust could be dissolved and some services closed.

A spokesman for the trust reassured patients that services would be run "as normal" until a decision was made.

The trust runs the Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington, Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich.

When the three hospitals became one organisation they inherited a large debt - mainly from the private finance initiative that had been used for the buildings at Orpington and Woolwich.

In recent years, the deficit has got worse - it reached 2012 with £69m of debt on a turnover of just over £424m.

Article continues ...

The Independent - 26/06/12

Another 20 NHS trusts could also find themselves in special measures, it emerged today, as Health Secretary Andrew Lansley seeks to turn around one trust losing £1 million a week.

South London Healthcare NHS Trust will be the first in the country to be put under the control of a special administrator tasked with putting it on a viable footing.

A further 20 trusts are facing serious financial difficulties which could ultimately see them in the same situation, it has emerged.

Article continues ...

biffvernon wrote:Seems the obvious thing to do is to allow them to go bankrupt and thus default on their PFI debts and then allow them to be taken over by the, er National Health Service which would then own the National Health Service instead of it being owned by a load of *ankers.

The Guardian - 05/07/12

PFI will ultimately cost £300bn

Repayments on contracts will grow to £10bn a year by 2017-18, say Guardian figures, and government is still striking new deals.

Article continues ...