Capitalism fails NHS services in Liverpool: scrap PFI!

Royal Liverpool University Hospital: still not finished, photo by ReptOn1x/CC (Click to enlarge)

Roger Bannister, Liverpool Socialist Party

The collapse of outsourcing company Carillion in May 2018 was described as "a story of recklessness, hubris and greed" by a parliamentary enquiry. While this is undoubtedly correct, in Liverpool in practical terms it meant a halt to the building of the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

This is a much needed facility for residents of the city and its surrounding boroughs.

The National Audit Office has just published a report which gets close to the true cost of this fiasco, initially funded under the discredited 'private finance initiative' (PFI) scheme, which enabled private-sector construction companies to rip off millions of pounds from public-sector contracts.

This scheme was abandoned once Carillion went under. The hospital should have been open and treating patients with state-of-the-art equipment by now, but the earliest current estimate of its opening is 2022.

As if this delay is not bad enough, the cost of building the new facility has rocketed from £350 million to at least £720 million.

This was following the discovery of major defects in work originally undertaken by Carillion. Concrete beams were found to have cracks in them, necessitating their replacement with conventional steel girders under a new contractor, Lang O'Rourke.

Disastrous

But the disastrous state of affairs does not end there. Following the Grenfell disaster, it was further discovered that the cladding on the external walls of the building was unsafe, posing major risks to life and limb in the event of a fire!

Brand new equipment has had to be taken out after it was discovered that three floors were liable to collapse. The existing hospital building has frequent power failures, and floods on a regular basis. But it actually has more beds than the 646 planned for the new building, raising doubts about its long-term capacity.

In political terms, the tragedy of this situation is the PFI scheme itself, introduced by the Tories, but embraced enthusiastically by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when Labour was in power. Under this scheme, companies continue to own and control the buildings for 30 years after they have opened, directly employing many of the workers, and raking in profits over that period.

In addition, it is clear from this and many other examples that oversight of the projects was scant, allowing companies to cut corners, and thereby costs, in pursuit of even greater profits. For capitalism, the public sector is little more than a chance to rip off the taxpayer to a massive extent.

The Socialist Party calls for the scrapping of all PFI schemes and debts; nationalisation of the major construction companies under democratic workers' control, to eliminate the profit motive that led to this disaster; and a fully funded, fully publicly owned NHS.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.