Swings and roundabouts; but mostly roundabouts
Even though two PFI hospitals are sinking into ever more debt, the financial advisers who helped create the problem continue to benefit.
The staggering deficits of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust [QEH] in London is a projected £20million loss this financial year; and the foundation NHS trust running University College London [UCLH] is suffering a loss of £17million at the half-year stage and both deficits are largely due to PFI commitments.
The companies which have been brought in to support the ailing finances of the two trusts are namely Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) in the case of the UCLH, and KPMG in the case of the QEH. And the companies who initially advised the finances of the two trusts were… KPMG who advised UCLH, and PwC who advised QEH. Hence Private Eye’s amazement at how the two companies “can trouser yet more fees trying to clear up eachother’s mess.”
Source:
In the Back, Private Eye, no. 1149, 6-19 January 2006.
