As ministers weigh up the options for using private capital to build some of the new “neighbourhood health centres” and to finance the delayed “new hospitals programme,” recent revelations about three older PFI schemes remind us of the long-term costs.
1. England’s first PFI hospital ends contract early
Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary, the first hospital completed under New Labour’s controversial Private Finance Initiative, is to end its PFI contract four years ahead of a 30-year break clause (in an original 45-year deal).
North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC), which runs the hospital, announced at the end of January that on December 31 it had given notice of a “no-fault voluntary termination” of the PFI contract as of March 31.
The £67m hospital opened in 2000 amid a whole series of disastrous “teething problems” including plumbing faults that led to water, and even sewage leaking into clinical areas, faulty windows, leaks in the roof, and much more, with some issues unresolved two years later. Many of the same design faults that were discovered in Carlisle also cropped up in subsequent first wave PFI hospitals.
Full article in The Lowdown, 6th February 2026
