More than ￡1bn of PFI hospital schemes face the axe under new accounting rules, which take effect in April. Major health schemes including the ￡200m Papworth PFI Hospital, the ￡80m Southampton Oncology unit, the ￡400m Royal Liverpool Hospital scheme and the ￡3 70m Alder Hey Hospital project in Liverpool, could be ditched. The new rules will see up to ￡16bn of debt added to NHS balance sheets as PFI liabilities are made transparent. The move could make many PFI schemes unaffordable. The rules were due to be introduced last April but the Department of Health (DH) asked for a 12-month extension to find ways to put its PFI schemes on balance sheet without making them unaffordable. Andrew Dumbleton, corporate finance partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, said: "There are a number of new schemes on hold while the DH assesses whether these schemes are affordable as PFIs under the new rules."
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