More expensive to park at Hereford's County Hospital than Worcester, Bristol and Cardiff (From Ledbury Reporter)

Why is it that Herefordshire always has to be the worst or near the bottom of any performance table or public service being offered. People don't park in hospital car parks through choice! They do so because they have to visit sick/dying people. This charge is forced on them by commercial leeches who have no decency or compassion! How can the Princess Royal in Telford manage it and we can't? Why don't the NHS trust run it themselves? Then the money would be used on our behalf! No one would object so much if this were the case. Why are our councillors not doing something about this, when even in Parliment questions questions are starting to be asked. Discraceful Herefordshire, absolutely discraceful!

Apparently the extortionate pricing is partly to deter and prevent non Hospital users from using the car park. That in itself is ridiculous because all it needs is for parking to be free but put an exit barrier in place where drivers have to provide a parking pass (given to them by the hospital) to get out. then you can charge any non hospital users as much as you want to get out!

The bottom line though is that it is immoral to charge people who need to use hospital facilities, whether for themselvs or to visit loved ones, anything to park there.

And now you can't even park in KFC or Lidl and walk to the hospital, KFC have a man who sits on one of the benches outside and watches people parking there, if they go anywhere other than in to KFC he puts a ticket on their car, Lidl now have number plate reading cameras that clock you in and out, any more than two hours and you get an automated ticket in the post!!! Damned anti-social i call it!!!

It might not be so bad if you were only charged for the period between your appointment time and the time your appointment should finish.
The double whammy is when you are seen late whilst the car park racks up charges. Doubly stressful at a time when people are under stress anyway.
I wonder how much less aggression there would be to hospital staff if visitors and patients didn't feel the system was ripping them off financially as well.
Someone signed a contract giving the PFI people the right to extort money. Could the HT find out who?

Use the private car park in Kyrle Street - its much cheaper, next to the hospital and only a few yards more to walk, assuming you are reasonably mobile.

Just visited an old work colleague in Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny. Cost of parking - nothing. Free parking in the majority of Welsh hospitals.

Park for a quid in Morrison's. Free if you make a token purchase. If you can't walk from Morrison's to the front door of the hospital you probably need a bed at the hospital yerself. If there are any free!

Why do we put up with it? What is it about 'us' that makes 'them' think we'll put up with it?
Of course, 'they' are right when they think that we'll put up with it because we do. Yeah, we'll moan and groan and post our objections but it makes no difference. 'They simply carry on feeding upon us, shifting the blurred lines here, there and everywhere until we've become so bloody disorientated, we've no idea how we allowed it to happen and worse, how to get out of this mess that 'they' created and 'we' pay for.
Parasites, free loaders and sharks the lot of them! It's sickening to think that our society has become so docile that this form of what is essentially illicit activity can flourish and prosper in the way it has and worse, through the eyes of the law, it's all bloody legal.
If I was a braver and better man I'd knock up some sign depicting my objection to this practice and protest outside this Hospital.
That's really what we all should do. Of course we won't because after decades of social bloody engineering we've all become lap dogs to the ruling elite.

I know nothing about PFI, however
I presume that the person responsible for agreeing and signing the PFI on behalf of the hospital has moved onwards and upwards to more rewarding employment within the NHS or whatever it's called now.

Our MP raised this issue in a debate concerning PFI in the House of Commons last year. Here are his introductory comments regarding Hereford Hospital. You can read the rest at:
http://www.publicati
ons.parliament.uk/pa
/cm201011/cmhansrd/c
m110623/halltext/110
623h0001.htm

Jesse Norman: Like many colleagues, I first understood the impact of the private finance initiative through my local hospital. Starting in 1999, Hereford hospital was one of the earliest PFI projects. It was built and is currently owned and managed under a 30-year contract through a special purpose company, which is three-quarters owned by Semperian, a large PFI firm based in the City of London, and one-quarter owned by the French industrial services giant, Sodexo. Non-clinical services are contracted out to Sodexo, WS Atkins and to others.

Car parking charges at the hospital have been the source of huge local anger because they penalise patients at a very vulnerable time in their lives. They particularly hit frequent users such as those visiting in-patients and those suffering from cancer. They are socially regressive, falling relatively harder on the poor than on the rich. As I investigated further, I found that that was only the tip of the iceberg. The reason why the charges were so high was down to the PFI itself, because car parking was contracted out not once but twice—first to Sodexo and then to CP Plus, and each had its own mark-up.

It seems to be true that many decisions were made from a desire to fit the financial cloth to the pocket rather than from the actual clinical needs of the patients. It is certainly true that the squeeze that these inflation-adjusted costs exert on hospitals is heavily responsible for the closure of A and E units.

Let me return now to the situation at Hereford hospital. Later PFI contracts have contained financial safeguards for the NHS, including automatic efficiency savings of 3% a year and the right for a hospital to put services out to public tender periodically.

However, the Hereford contract contains neither of those safeguards. There are no automatic efficiency savings, and the contract cannot be retendered until 2029. The hospital trust is doing a valiant job, but it has little influence, legal scope or access to underlying costs which might help it to negotiate changes to the contract. Worse still, no mechanism exists by which the hospital can group together with other PFI hospitals to exercise collective influence over the PFI contractors. By contrast, Semperian has 106 PFI contracts. The imbalance in power is obvious, yet the NHS seems to have done nothing to remedy that.

For almost a year now, I have been campaigning for a voluntary rebate for taxpayers on the PFI of £500 million to £1 billion. Those are large numbers, but that goal is not unrealistic.

The old chief bureaucrat at Wye Bother NHS Trust could not cope with the finances and has left the scene. Our MP promised before the election he would sort out the car parking issue at the norovirus breeding centre but has failed to do so. The trouble with Hereford is that we not only accept failure from our politicians and public sector chiefs as inevitable we also reward them handsomely for that failure. Where is the incentive for success?

Perhaps it might deter the many hypochondriacs !!!!!

When my late husband was seriously ill a few years ago, I spent a very great deal of time at the hospital over a nine month period. All his admissions were emergency ones and I spent many a night and day by his bedside. Sadly he passed away but not before I'd clocked up hundreds of pounds of parking charges at the hospital. In one week, I could easily spend upwards of £60.00.
On two separate occasions I forgot to take my purse with me when he was rushed into hospital. I found car park staff rude and unhelpful which, at a time of distress, was horrible. I complained and got a begrudging apology. Totally unacceptable in my opinion.

The people of Leominster and Ross are going to find it very expensive to be seen at the County Hospital now the Minor Injuries Units at their hospitals have closed after 5.30pm until 9.30am Monday to Friday and are not open Saturday and Sunday,
Obviously minor injuries will have to wait for the serious accidents or emergencies to be seen, This is a very serious issue for people on fixed incomes what with the proposed Council Tax rise, fuel and food prices rising all the time.

Hospitals are facing closure because they cannot pay debts incurred on expensive PFI deals. Taken fron D Telegraph article in 2011

What is PFI?
PFI deals were invented in 1992 by the Conservative government led by Sir John Major, but became widespread under Labour after 1997.

The schemes usually involved large scale buildings such as new schools and hospitals, or infrastructure projects which would previously have been publicly funded by the Treasury.

The projects are put out to tender with bids invited from building firms and developers who put in the investment, build new schools, hospitals or other schemes and then lease them back.

Lease arrangements for PFI projects are long term, often 25 years or longer.

Why were they so popular?
PFI deals became popular in government from the end of the 1990s, under the then chancellor Gordon Brown, because they allowed ministers to secure large sums to invest in popular projects, such as new schools and hospitals, without paying any money up front.

Repayments are made over a long time scale, usually between 25 and 30 years but occasionally as long as 60 years, but at a high rate of interest.

That meant that large debts were stored up for future taxpayers – which now have to be repaid. Under a Treasury sleight of hand, PFI debts do not form part of the deficit balance sheet.

When did it start to go wrong?
Even as far back as ten years ago unions began to give dire warnings about the future cost to the country of PFI schemes.

In April a scathing report by National Audit Office found that each household will pay nearly £400 next year to pay for hospitals, schools and motorways.

The price tag for repaying PFI firms will reach £8.6 billion next year alone, with the taxpayer owing a total of £121.4 billion on public projects which are worth only £52.9 billion.

Many PFI deals tie local authorities into expensive catering, cleaning and maintenance contracts, meaning the total bill to the taxpayer is £229 billion. In one case, a school was charged £320 for a plug socket.

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph in January revealed young people starting work this year will pay taxes for the Government’s Private Finance Initiative until they are nearly 70.

Labour’s last health secretary, Andy Burnham, who was in charge of 221 PFI projects, admitted last year: “We made mistakes. I’m not defending every pen-stroke of the PFI contracts we signed.”

Where is the money going?
Private contractors who agreed PFI deals with the Government are set to make billions of pounds in profit, with some due to see returns of up to 71 per cent.

An almost unknown City company, Innisfree, with only 14 staff, is the largest single player in the PFI market, owning or co-owning 269 PFI schools and 28 hospitals.

According to accounts filed at Companies House, Innisfree’s profit margin was 53 per cent last year. A successful FTSE 100 company makes margins of around 6 per cent. David Metter, the founder and chief executive of Innisfree, owns almost three-quarters of the company and collected pay and dividends of £8.6 million last year.

The PFI deals include:
A hospital which charged £52,000 for a job that cost £750. Demolishing a shelter for smokers resulted in the PFI contractor charging £2,600 a year for the “extra cleaning”.

A hospital in Bromley, south London, which will cost the NHS £1.2billion, more than 10 times what it is worth.

An empty school which will cost taxpayers £370,000 a year until 2027. Another school had to pay £302 for a socket, five times the cost of the equipment it wanted to plug in.

Military dog kennels which would have ended up costing more per night than a room in the Park Lane Hilton, London.
The deal to replace facilities at the Defence Animal Centre in Melton Mowbray resulted in the sacking of the contractor and the scrapping of the contract.

In Belfast, a school closed after seven years but the PFI contractor must be paid £370,000 a year for the next 16 years.

What can be done?
Some hospitals have managed to use break clauses to get out of their PFI contracts but the government could be forced to bail out struggling trusts.

The National Audit Officer report said that in future Government should have the power to cancel or substantially renegotiate PFI projects where it could be proved that taxpayers were not receiving value for money.

They added that civil servants should use the state's huge buying power to obtain better deals, and boost their skills to avoid being outwitted by private sector counterparts.

Just another kick in the teeth to add to the list.

Also, an FYI, if you get any of those parking eye (et al) penalty notices in the post, don't reply, throw them in the bin. They'll send more then give up.

Unlike the yellow tickets, private parking restrictions like at lidl, aldi etc are a matter of civil law not criminal law. This means they have to take you to court which beasts them far too much time, money and hassle.

They literally work by scaring people into paying - much like the TV Licence.

It would be interesting (or horrifying) to know how much profit the company running the hospital car parks makes each year.

Accounts are due in January, you'll be able to find out on Companies House :)

Ubique5740 says...
8:53pm Fri 28 Dec 12
I know nothing about PFI, however I presume that the person responsible for agreeing and signing the PFI on behalf of the hospital has moved onwards and upwards to more rewarding employment within the NHS or whatever it's called now.

Some details here on local PFI projects:
Case Study : Hereford County Hospital
http://www.partnersh
ipsuk.org.uk/PUK-Cas
e-Study.aspx?Region=
West%20Midlands&SubR
egion=&Project=11307

Case Study : Hereford and Worcester Magistrates Court
http://www.partnersh
ipsuk.org.uk/PUK-Cas
e-Study.aspx?Region=
West%20Midlands&SubR
egion=&Project=11082

Case Study : Hereford & Worcester Waste Management Project
http://www.partnersh
ipsuk.org.uk/PUK-Cas
e-Study.aspx?Region=
West%20Midlands&SubR
egion=&Project=11099


Taken from a report by European Services Strategy Unit - The £10 billion pound sale of shares in PPP companies: New source of profit for builders and banks by Dexter Whitfield (January 2011)

A new ESSU Research Report reveals 240 PPP equity transactions involved 1,229 PPP projects (including multiple sales) valued at £10.0bn in the last decade. Average profit was 50.6% in individual and group equity transactions. £517.9m profit from a sample of 154 PPP projects. If the same level of profit were maintained for the 622 individual and group PPP project equity transactions the total profit would be £2.2bn. (This excludes the undisclosed profits obtained in the sale of secondary market infrastructure funds). Increased use of tax havens for UK infrastructure funds – 91 PPP projects with 50% – 100% equity ownership with funds registered in tax havens

Nice to know that most of that public investment is ending up in offshore funds for the benefit of private shareholders and owners. Nice bit of wheeler dealing exposed in the report above.

Each Private Finance Initiative (PFI) or Public Private Partnership (PPP) project has a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) or company in which the construction company, bank or financial institution and the facilities management company have an equity stake, with each companys shareholding relative to their contribution to the project. The SPV signs the contract with the public authority and finances construction by borrowing, usually bank loans or bonds, that account for between 85%–90% of the financial resources with the equity shareholding in the SPV accounting for the remaining 10%–15%. Construction companies post profits from their PPP operations in their annual accounts. Profit from the sale of equity in SPV companies is a one-off additional profit but the purchasers of the equity clearly expect to makefurther profits over the remainder of the contract.

PPP Infrastructure funds located in tax havens:
HSBC Infrastructure - Guernsey
John Laing Infrastructure Fund - Guernsey
3i Infrastructure Fund - Jersey
International Public Partnerships (formerly Babcock
Brown Public Partnerships) - Guernsey
GCP Infrastructure Fund Ltd - Gravis Capital Partners - Jersey

The PPP projects where 50% - 100% of the equity is owned by infrastructure funds located in tax havens includes International Public Partnerships above who are responsible for Hereford & Worcester Magistrates Courts.

The link for the above report is:
http://www.european-
services-strategy.or
g.uk/publications/es
su-research-reports/
essu-research-report
-no-4-the-ps10bn-sal
e-of-s/10bn-sale-of-
ppp-shares.pdf

Thanks to Megilleland and Biomech for the information - very useful.

Thanks Megilleland for your explanation , it appears that if I have pots of money I can invest it in PFI and get even richer, wow!

Oh really? How does one go about that? I'd like to setup some investments and a 50% return sounds great