Daily Insight: A spanner in the works

The government has launched “health week”, which means this week will see plenty of health announcements from the Department of Health and Social Care and No. 10 in a bid to show the public that progress is being made to help the NHS recover after the pandemic.

So it was rather unfortunate timing that news broke on Monday morning of a private cancer care provider collapsing after an “unsustainable cash burn” that will lead to its liquidation.

While the provider in question, Rutherford Health, is not among the biggest private healthcare firms, its demise is surprising given the desperate state of cancer waiting times in the NHS, which (partly) led Sajid Javid to declare a “war on cancer” in February.

It is not clear how many NHS patients will be affected by Rutherford’s demise, although the company said the number was “small”.

The pain will probably be felt strongest in Somerset, where the county’s NHS trust uses a Rutherford-run diagnostic centre which has won the praise of Sir Mike Richards and Boris Johnson.

Health chiefs there are desperate to keep the centre going, but Rutherford’s fate has thrown a major spanner in the works.

Trust steels itself for legal battle

An almighty row has erupted in Sheffield, where the city’s acute trust has launched legal action against its private finance initiative provider and builders.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust is suing Hadfield Healthcare Partnerships and international building firm Kajima Construction Europe over multiple fire safety defects at a hospital wing in the trust’s Northern General Hospital.

So serious were the defects that the wing had to be closed for more than two years, causing much woe at the trust.

The trust is seeking at least £15m in compensation from Hadfield and Kajima, but the legal action has triggered a bitter blame game between the two private firms and facilities management firm Veolia over who is liable for what.

It is the second recent example of an NHS trust resorting to a court fight over estates problems at PFI-funded buildings, following Northumbria Healthcare FT’s battle with Lendlease which HSJ revealed last year.

It is right that the NHS pursues what it believes it is owed, but the complexities involved in PFI contracts mean the chances of success are difficult to measure.