Merger between Whiston, St Helens and Warrington Hospitals suggested to solve PFI crisis (From St Helens Star)

This was always on the cards but nobody listened every time I spoke against PFI-no such thing a free lunch. This is "pay-back time", so we are going to be into some interesting arm wrestling between Warriington, St.Helens and Whiston. Tories always had Privatisation on the cards so should we be surprised?

Hospitals are not the only area finding paying back what is owed difficult under PFI arrangements.

interesting Bill to see what our tory posters say..and they will...Grandchild asked me "Whats a tory ?" So i took all his toys and gave them to a tory voting neighbour..I think the message got through.

Wasn't it New Labour that used PFI to build the hospitals? I know PFI was a Tory scheme - but Labour were in power and surely didn't have to use a tory scheme?

the likes of RIMMER,WATTS and tory turn coat WOODWARD coudlnt stop spouting about new hospitals and new schools and what a gret goverment the represented and flogged this idea to gain votes,BROWN loved the pfi's because it never showed up on the national dept,now everyone is ralising what a terrible situation they got us into who are the blaiming now,yes as always the present goverment,the facts are we have to find £20m a year before they even buy a plaster to stick on a cut and this is for 30+years,so RIMMER,WATTS and co why not just stand up and tell us why you signed up to a dissasterous and ill concieved plan and stop passing the buck,the smoke and mirrors trick isnt working anymore YOUR party got us in this mess and YOU wholeheatedly knew the outcome.

Like my Granddad once said - you can't go on borrowing forever.

Tories pinched my daughters school milk as well....toerags the lot of them

put it another way, if we now had another election, and Clegg got out of Davids bed, would they get back in "NO"

pitbullboxing wrote:
Wasn't it New Labour that used PFI to build the hospitals? I know PFI was a Tory scheme - but Labour were in power and surely didn't have to use a tory scheme?

Game, set and match to you. As I have written many times not "New Labour" but "Old Tory". They just carried on many Tory policies especially PFI brought in by Kenneth Clark to keep public spending off the books, forgetting from wherever this money came somebody would want it back-with interest!

With Iraq, not one of our better judgements but at least we got two new Hospitals and some schools, who are also finding pay-back time a bit of a problem. Still it gives the tories the excuse to privatise as they are doing with School Academies.

If the people of St. Helens and Knowsley think that our hospitals are under pressure with a PFI annual debt of more than £20million, spare a thought for the people of Mid-Yorkshire. The new Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield opened in 2010. It allegedly cost £320 million to build and faces an annual bill of £35 million for 35 years – total repayment, £1.225 billion. Furthermore, RBS (a bank that we taxpayers now own) last year sold off its share of the debt to a Guernsey-based company who now manage to avoid the vast majority of tax on the annual £2.4million profit that they make from the Pinderfields PFI contract. To add insult to injury, management consultants have been brought in to deal with the dire financial situation and have pocketed a total of £2.2 million – which would have funded more that 50 nurses wages!
To pay for this disastrous PFI policy that New Labour forced on the NHS, scores of staff at Pinderfields have been sacked, while others are being downgraded and given pay cuts – with nurses forced to do cleaning!
It is unacceptable to have a National Health Service that is free at the point of delivery, but cannot deliver effective treatment due to vital money being siphoned off for private profit.

Bill Bradbury wrote:
This was always on the cards but nobody listened every time I spoke against PFI-no such thing a free lunch. This is "pay-back time", so we are going to be into some interesting arm wrestling between Warriington, St.Helens and Whiston. Tories always had Privatisation on the cards so should we be surprised?

Hospitals are not the only area finding paying back what is owed difficult under PFI arrangements.

See my comment below, Bill. This is part of a letter that I submitted over two weeks ago but for some reason has not been printed. If people want more information on the PFI debacle and other such scams, buy Private Eye.

pitbullboxing wrote:
Wasn't it New Labour that used PFI to build the hospitals? I know PFI was a Tory scheme - but Labour were in power and surely didn't have to use a tory scheme?

See my comment below, pitbull - part of a letter I sent to the Star a couple of weeks ago.

frankly wrote:
Tories pinched my daughters school milk as well....toerags the lot of them

The Tories did not create this mess - New Labour did. Read my comment which is part of a letter I sent to the Star a couple of weeks ago but has not as yet been printed.

Looking forward to seeing your letter Mike. Just read your post above that is truly shocking. Trying not to be political about this but the more stones we unturn about the new labour years the more horrifying it gets. I really hope for my own and my family’s sake they don’t merge the hospitals but if they do Watts and Woodward’s positions will simply be untenable and they must both resign. They (or the government they both served in) led us into this fiasco and PR exercises showing then in the star against the merger are hypocrisy of the highest order and they should not be allowed to survive it.

Sankey wrote:
Looking forward to seeing your letter Mike. Just read your post above that is truly shocking. Trying not to be political about this but the more stones we unturn about the new labour years the more horrifying it gets. I really hope for my own and my family’s sake they don’t merge the hospitals but if they do Watts and Woodward’s positions will simply be untenable and they must both resign. They (or the government they both served in) led us into this fiasco and PR exercises showing then in the star against the merger are hypocrisy of the highest order and they should not be allowed to survive it.

I have submitted an updated version, Sankey. However, neither Watts, Woodward or Rimmer have the honour to resign.

Mike I am a regular subscriber to the "Eye" where we read from the onset of PFI the scams which were being perpretrated which we eventually read years later in the national Press-inflated bids which should have cost half the price.

However if "WorstGroup" were allowed to renege on contracts they took out and could not afford, perhaps the hospitals should do also?

Bill Bradbury wrote:
Mike I am a regular subscriber to the "Eye" where we read from the onset of PFI the scams which were being perpretrated which we eventually read years later in the national Press-inflated bids which should have cost half the price.

However if "WorstGroup" were allowed to renege on contracts they took out and could not afford, perhaps the hospitals should do also?

I created a Facebook page called "Ditch PFI and save our hospitals from Privatisation". Have a look at it sometime, Bill. Cannot expect the Tories to renege, as it is their friends and supporeters who are creaming off the profit!

The PFI programme has been a complete disaster from start to finish. Far too much money was levered in through PFI contracts at the same time to build a series of hospitals and schools. One of the things which has always puzzled me is the decision which was made to rebuilt three Hospitals St Helens, Whiston and Newton. Would it not have been much more cost effective to have built just one new hospital for the area on one site and brought all the services together?

Anthony, Joined up thinking isn't in a Politicians remit.

anthonywilson wrote:
The PFI programme has been a complete disaster from start to finish. Far too much money was levered in through PFI contracts at the same time to build a series of hospitals and schools. One of the things which has always puzzled me is the decision which was made to rebuilt three Hospitals St Helens, Whiston and Newton. Would it not have been much more cost effective to have built just one new hospital for the area on one site and brought all the services together?

You speak a lot of sense, Anthony. You are clearly not a politician. I have been accused of banging on about PFI for the last 2 years - they even tried to shut me up at the public meeting regarding the hospital privatization scare last year.
Seems that I was right after all - and I take no pleasure from that, because people are losing their jobs and patient care will eventually suffer.

i asked that very question over 2 years ago anthonywilson and was told to be queit i also asked it on the radio (merseyside) in a debate and got told it was civic pride and a vote winner!!!!,never had a comment from RIMMER ,WATTS and turn coat as to why whiston is half empty but we still had to build the outpatients at st helens????

Just read a brilliant article by John Longworth head of the British chamber of commerce and he is absolutely scathing about politicians. He could have been writing about St Helens whom it fits perfectly. Did you out of the 650 politicians only 150 have any experience of anything other than the political bubble? And we wonder why things are a mess. The only skillset of the people charged with running the country is political manoeuvring

No point playing the blame game now - we need to figure out the best way to stop the merger for every-bodies sake.

pitbullboxing wrote:
No point playing the blame game now - we need to figure out the best way to stop the merger for every-bodies sake.

Quite right, pitbull, as it is quite predictable that each community will fight to keep their own hospital. In no way can the investment in St.Helens Hospital can be written off and that goes for Whiston which has many wards empty.
The residents of Warrington would wish to keep their "own" hospital but due to its age it looks vulnerable and a move up to Whiston or St.Helens is on the cards. At least if that happened Warrington will feel for the first time what it is like to miss out on investment a town often held up to compare with St.Helens.

I don't think this can be condensed into a warrington vs st helens rivaliry Bill. Lots of people often very ill or elderly relatives will have to travel distances for treatment.

anthonywilson wrote:
The PFI programme has been a complete disaster from start to finish. Far too much money was levered in through PFI contracts at the same time to build a series of hospitals and schools. One of the things which has always puzzled me is the decision which was made to rebuilt three Hospitals St Helens, Whiston and Newton. Would it not have been much more cost effective to have built just one new hospital for the area on one site and brought all the services together?

Could you imagine the outcry from local politicians of ALL parties had the site for the one hospital been Whiston and not St Helens? Regardless of cost or patient care local politicians constantly told us St Helens MUST have its own hospital. Even when the St Helens Walk in centre opened we had one local politician banging on about the 'closure' of the accident and emergency dept at St Helens hospital for years. What we need is to get the politicians out of the NHS- at least at local level , because they only ever use these issues to serve their interests and not the interests of patients.We now have two state of the art hospitals within 5 miles of each other , that's fantastic and I have used both hospitals and the care is first class. We need to get away from emotion and start thinking practical.

BillMitch wrote:

anthonywilson wrote:
The PFI programme has been a complete disaster from start to finish. Far too much money was levered in through PFI contracts at the same time to build a series of hospitals and schools. One of the things which has always puzzled me is the decision which was made to rebuilt three Hospitals St Helens, Whiston and Newton. Would it not have been much more cost effective to have built just one new hospital for the area on one site and brought all the services together?

Could you imagine the outcry from local politicians of ALL parties had the site for the one hospital been Whiston and not St Helens? Regardless of cost or patient care local politicians constantly told us St Helens MUST have its own hospital. Even when the St Helens Walk in centre opened we had one local politician banging on about the 'closure' of the accident and emergency dept at St Helens hospital for years. What we need is to get the politicians out of the NHS- at least at local level , because they only ever use these issues to serve their interests and not the interests of patients.We now have two state of the art hospitals within 5 miles of each other , that's fantastic and I have used both hospitals and the care is first class. We need to get away from emotion and start thinking practical.

The problem is, Bill, that the hospitals were built with private finance so that the debt would not appear as government debt. The repayments are extortionate, and had the money been borrowed in the normal way we could have built twice as many hospitals. It is no good having state of the art hospitals if funding is taken away for private profit and they cannot deliver a full service.

The "regulars" on this site know my support of Marie and Dave and I can assure you despite some always being critical of them, they will be fighting tooth & nail to keep what we have and find a solution. I have seen both in action behind the scenes in contact with Government Officials fighting for funding. Marie is a formidable advocate despite some of your comments.

So as Pittbull writes who to blame is not the way forward but it is down to us all to give support for the fight regardless of our political persuasion.

My only wry smile, as many of us are agreed over the PFI debacle, is in the Star Headline "Hands off OUR hospital" er--(as Private Eye always writes) whoever put up the cash might say "Actually it's ours!?" until somebody pays them what is owed, then it can be YOURS! Perhaps as tax payers it's ours anyway. Just an observation to muddy the waters!!

BillMitch wrote:

anthonywilson wrote:
The PFI programme has been a complete disaster from start to finish. Far too much money was levered in through PFI contracts at the same time to build a series of hospitals and schools. One of the things which has always puzzled me is the decision which was made to rebuilt three Hospitals St Helens, Whiston and Newton. Would it not have been much more cost effective to have built just one new hospital for the area on one site and brought all the services together?

Could you imagine the outcry from local politicians of ALL parties had the site for the one hospital been Whiston and not St Helens? Regardless of cost or patient care local politicians constantly told us St Helens MUST have its own hospital. Even when the St Helens Walk in centre opened we had one local politician banging on about the 'closure' of the accident and emergency dept at St Helens hospital for years. What we need is to get the politicians out of the NHS- at least at local level , because they only ever use these issues to serve their interests and not the interests of patients.We now have two state of the art hospitals within 5 miles of each other , that's fantastic and I have used both hospitals and the care is first class. We need to get away from emotion and start thinking practical.

No doubt the politicians of all parties would have kicked up a fuss about it Bill and considering St Helens Hospital did have an A and E department of its own many years ago any loss of service on the doorstep makes people angry. The reality is though that politicians whilst supposedly representing people's interests also look after thier own interests too in terms of the ballot box. Whilst it would have been a somewhat difficult political decision to make for most local politicians the reality is we now have three hospitals saddled with debt for years to come making extortionate repayments of tax payers money that should have been going on better health care and other things or getting the national debt down. If the politicians had more nous and said that one new hospital rather than three will ensure costs get kept down but will also ensure much improved health care facilities on one site rather than construction costs and heavy repayment PFI bills from three hospitals thats what they should have proposed and implemented. There has been a scandalous waste of money here and a complete lack of forthought. Another idea lacking long term thinking was to built the Millennium Centre/NHS walk in centre and then more recently build the Lowe House Medical Centre. Again why is there simply no long term thinking when one larger building would have been better with all health care services on one site thereby saving construction costs. In fact an ideal place for it could have been St Thomas Square. As Mike has said though the real problem has been the PFI contracts themselves with the astronomical repayments. Indeed if the money had been borrowed in the normal way more hospitals could have been built if required. One politician who wouldn't necessarily be complaining if only one hospital had been built is Shaun Woodward as he is now the MP for St Helens South and Whiston since the last boundary changes.

Bill Bradbury wrote:
The "regulars" on this site know my support of Marie and Dave and I can assure you despite some always being critical of them, they will be fighting tooth & nail to keep what we have and find a solution. I have seen both in action behind the scenes in contact with Government Officials fighting for funding. Marie is a formidable advocate despite some of your comments.

So as Pittbull writes who to blame is not the way forward but it is down to us all to give support for the fight regardless of our political persuasion.

My only wry smile, as many of us are agreed over the PFI debacle, is in the Star Headline "Hands off OUR hospital" er--(as Private Eye always writes) whoever put up the cash might say "Actually it's ours!?" until somebody pays them what is owed, then it can be YOURS! Perhaps as tax payers it's ours anyway. Just an observation to muddy the waters!!

Marie is well known for being formidable and has a reputation as being very aggressive. A sure sign of an individual’s insecurity. I don't doubt also Dave Watts fights tooth and nail. But there is more to effective governance than that Bill using sound judgement for one. And that’s where both of these fall down they have no experience of anything other than politics 70’s union conflict and the class war. I would remind you this is 2012 not 1972. The results Bill speak for themselves this mess with local health care and the general economic state of St Helens just to name two. Time after time these two have shown poor judgement for many many years. They are only in place because they are in the Labour seat. No problem with Labour but its time they stood aside and let someone else have a go at the Labour ticket which in St Helens is a job for life. What is it about new blood that frightens you so much Bill? They would be hard pushed to do a worse job than those two.

Sankey I am all for new blood, a theme I have expressed as Chairman of my Parish Council and quite a few other trusts I am on. The average age is over 60 and 70 in one case. It appears no one volunteers or is interested in local politics or in running anything. This is left to a very small minority and I know who they are-the backbone of the community.

At our next election in 4 years time I would be over the moon if we could get 10 younger people putting up for office for I know my colleageus all would resign (except 2 who are younger) and we would support the new team. That is my wish.

As to Marie and Dave both have been democratically elected and nominated and supported by the group and knowing many of the Cllrs. well I am sure if they had no confidence in either we would be seeing a change, which you would say for the better. So until that day arrives there is little you and I can do rather than some shouting yah-boo from the sidelines.

Papyt for MP and Sankey for leader-now there is a thought!! The day that Mike gets welcomed back to the fold-pigs will fly. I am not afraid of a Labour party of all views to the right or to the left. I tend to be more to the left plus some Tory converts???

Bill I have nothing personally against Watts or Rimmer how could I, I don’t know them. However their poor record in the town over several decades speaks for itself. But even if they had been successful is it really healthy for people to occupy posts for decades? it would never occur in any other walk of life. Chief executives of multinational companies normally are only in post for 4 to 5 years. There is a good reason for that shareholders want new ideas and to refresh the post. None of these normal rules apply to St Helens and the state of the town shows clearly the outcome of that. As for the councillors speaking out against them from what I have heard that would be a brave move their power is absolute.

I've always defended Marie Rimmer against personal attacks but the fact is she had had a long innings as Council leader and its time for new thinking.Dave Watts is backbench fodder not a problem if you are outspoken but he is a 100 percent party hack.As a Labour leaning voter I want an MP who is prepared to say his or her party is wrong.

when is the public meeting regarding these changes???? have i missed the headlines in the STAR????there must be one like the shambles run by RIMMER and her crew when the privatisation scare first raised its head,only this time can we have a debate and not just the labour groups ghestapo shouting down anyone who didnt agree with them,then mabe we would get some answers to quetions posted on here weekly.

Being a Socialist thinker I could never vote for any of the three major parties and will NOT contemplate New Labour at all. Those New Labour Party members and the then Cabinet officials sold their souls for pieces of silver.
I'm working in Afghanistan at the moment and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the well-informed
debate and friendly banter. It's been a breath of fresh air for me, I'm glad Politics is still alive and kicking in St Helens and the argument for fresh blood in the Council and Parliament is a valid one.

Sumner wrote:
Being a Socialist thinker I could never vote for any of the three major parties and will NOT contemplate New Labour at all. Those New Labour Party members and the then Cabinet officials sold their souls for pieces of silver.
I'm working in Afghanistan at the moment and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the well-informed
debate and friendly banter. It's been a breath of fresh air for me, I'm glad Politics is still alive and kicking in St Helens and the argument for fresh blood in the Council and Parliament is a valid one.

Nice to hear from you, Sumner. What we need is a coalition of all socialist parties - but will that ever happen. I have been arguing against PFI for years.

Just joined & fascinated to see the Star regular letterwriters dominating the postings on the website and still refusing to recognise anything of merit in opposing views. How anyone who warned of the dangers of PFI but watched their local heroes embrace it and then wallow in the glory of what it produced can now defend & support them as they "fight" to keep what was such a glaring & therefore reckless hostage to the future. Personally, I would hang my head in shame & SHUT UP.

Has anyone else read the article in the Times on Sunday - you have to be a subscriber, but the link is http://www.thesunday
times.co.uk/sto/news
/uk_news/National/ar
ticle1117005.ece#com
ment-review. Basically, it highlights the scandal of Guernsey-based investment firms buying up PFI contracts and avoiding tax on the profits it makes. The following paragraphs sums it up this stain on the last government - "The Queen Elizabeth has been beset by scandals over hygiene standards but its maintenance and cleaning contracts with Meridian Hospital, were signed in 1998, along with the PFI deal, and cannot be broken. The trust has been been crippled by PFI bills of £61m a year.
Frank Fitzpatrick saw his parents contract serious infections there and believes PFI has failed to provide adequate standards. His mother, Kathleen, was treated in 2003 and 2004 and suffered problems, including being sent home with a needle in her arm, before being readmitted and contracting clostridium difficile. The family won an apology, but she died soon after. His father, Edward, died of septicemia three years later and Fitzpatrick said he also suffered poor care.
A report into PFI by the NHS in 2007 found that the fixed costs for the Queen Elizabeth were twice as high, as a proportion of income, as for non-PFI organisations such as Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital.
The Queen Elizabeth PFI project is now owned by three funds — Semperian PPP Investment Partners, Innisfree and John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF).
HICL Infrastructure, one of the biggest PFI operators, has a similar set-up. One of its projects is Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, which pays £45m a year in debt repayments and charges. It has cut 700 jobs and closed beds because of financial problems. HICL’s Guernsey accounts to March 31 this year reveal a tax bill of only £100,000 last year".
Can we ever forgive New Labour for this shambles - I think not!

alltaxnoletoffs wrote:
Just joined & fascinated to see the Star regular letterwriters dominating the postings on the website and still refusing to recognise anything of merit in opposing views. How anyone who warned of the dangers of PFI but watched their local heroes embrace it and then wallow in the glory of what it produced can now defend & support them as they "fight" to keep what was such a glaring & therefore reckless hostage to the future. Personally, I would hang my head in shame & SHUT UP.

I just don't know what to make of this comment attributing remarks about us watching our local heros embrace it.
I just wondered where this poster was when I sat in meeting after meeting when PFI was mentioned and I was virtually told to "shut up" as what we are witnesssing now were just scare stories by me.

I had letters to the Star many years ago warning about everything that Mike has referred to in his letter on the Times on Sunday, the waste, the future costs, who will pay and I was made to feel like the local pariah or Jeremiah. As we both mentioned above "Private Eye" was exposing such waste long before the National press got hold of the stories. In fact I recall one hospital authority turning down PFI as it could build 3 hospitals for what PFI was offering. We are still not going to Shut up and now we are looking at some schools with PFI budgets they cannot afford.

Labour just carried on Tory policy and everyone went along with it as we all got new schools and hospitals.
As Pittbull suggested the blame culture will solve nothing and some of us get no satisfaction out of saying we told you so. Like I wrote there will be a lot of arguments over which hosptal remains open but it will provide the perfect excuse for Cameron and his cronies to put the whole shebang into Private hands.

Mike, Sankey, papyt, the usual contributers to this site and I won't be hanging our heads in shame neither will we shut up but get into the damage limitation fight.

No one should be hanging their heads in shame for expressing a valid (and in the case of Bill) normally articulate viewpoint. Albeit one with which I normally disagree. It’s called free speech and the St Helens Star provides a valuable service in allowing local people to air such views. PFI was started on a small scale by the Tories but then expanded enormously by Gordon Brown and it allowed him to overspend on the balance sheet and still hide further expenditure off the balance sheet. Money was no object with Gordon nor was reality.

If it were not for the good folk of the nhs I would not be here - especially those at St Hellens and Whiston , so I would like to help in any way I can - to fight any merger.

New about said they were going to cancel any PFI when they came into power, &lo, they did 3 terms with no action. There is no way the old facilities could have continued, but if STHK merges with Warrington, who will lead who? Warrington are already Foundation status, so on paper are financially more stable, yet their facilities are quite grim. There is a big risk that STHKTrust could be assets stripped, those departments that can make money will be forced to move elsewhere, those that don't will stay or close. Eventually we'll all end up going to Warrington or Liverpool for hospital treatment.

Bill Bradbury wrote:

alltaxnoletoffs wrote:
Just joined & fascinated to see the Star regular letterwriters dominating the postings on the website and still refusing to recognise anything of merit in opposing views. How anyone who warned of the dangers of PFI but watched their local heroes embrace it and then wallow in the glory of what it produced can now defend & support them as they "fight" to keep what was such a glaring & therefore reckless hostage to the future. Personally, I would hang my head in shame & SHUT UP.

I just don't know what to make of this comment attributing remarks about us watching our local heros embrace it.
I just wondered where this poster was when I sat in meeting after meeting when PFI was mentioned and I was virtually told to "shut up" as what we are witnesssing now were just scare stories by me.

I had letters to the Star many years ago warning about everything that Mike has referred to in his letter on the Times on Sunday, the waste, the future costs, who will pay and I was made to feel like the local pariah or Jeremiah. As we both mentioned above "Private Eye" was exposing such waste long before the National press got hold of the stories. In fact I recall one hospital authority turning down PFI as it could build 3 hospitals for what PFI was offering. We are still not going to Shut up and now we are looking at some schools with PFI budgets they cannot afford.

Labour just carried on Tory policy and everyone went along with it as we all got new schools and hospitals.
As Pittbull suggested the blame culture will solve nothing and some of us get no satisfaction out of saying we told you so. Like I wrote there will be a lot of arguments over which hosptal remains open but it will provide the perfect excuse for Cameron and his cronies to put the whole shebang into Private hands.

Mike, Sankey, papyt, the usual contributers to this site and I won't be hanging our heads in shame neither will we shut up but get into the damage limitation fight.

Well said, Bill. If people like ourselves keep quiet, then we are well and truly finished - the career politicians would be delighted.
Socialist Labour Party meeting in Liverpool tonight. Haven't attended a political meeting since we met at the Town Hall last year - and they tried to shut me up once again.