Exclusive: Guardian analysis of hospital trust accounts found 101 owe about £50bn in future unitary PFI payments
NHS trusts spent close to a half a billion pounds on interest charges from private companies for private finance initiative (PFI) contracts last year – equivalent to the salaries of 15,000 newly qualified nurses.
Hospital groups spent £2.3bn on legacy PFI projects in 2020-21, of which just under £1bn went on costs for essential services such as cleaning and maintenance. A third of the remaining PFI spend – £457m – went purely on paying off interest charges.
