Latest news – Page 2515
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Livingstone knocks lack of social housing at key site
London mayor Ken Livingstone has criticised a landmark development for failing to provide social housing. Mr Livingstone 'deplored' plans for the redevelopment of Battersea power station, which include 657 new flats. Last week, average house prices in London hit £200,000, and Mr Livingstone said the decision not to include social ...
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Not just acute idea
The private finance initiative's sphere of influence is spreading far beyond the acute hospitals of the first wave - a trend further boosted by the NHS plan. Seamus Ward reports
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Ahead of the game
Most of the large, acute private finance schemes have been driven by the need to rationalise disparate units on to one site. Leeds Community and Mental Health trust is using PFI to do the opposite - the trust needs a range of accommodation on sites scattered around the city.
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Joined-up thinking
Most projects that aspire to pioneer status are happy to put forward one element of the new building as proof they are breaking the mould. However, a £3.8m scheme at Sedgley in the West Midlands claims no less than three ground-breaking developments.
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Take your partners
All over the country trusts are forming 30-year relationships with PFI partners - but the average marriage doesn't last this long. How can you be sure which consortium is: a) Right for you? b) Means what it says? c) Will stay faithful? Use John Kelly's ha
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Grin and bear it?
Graffiti is already daubed on the otherwise pristine walls of the children's ward in the brand new Cumberland Infirmary. 'Tony Blair was here, 16 June 2000, ' reads the scrawl. He really ought to know better at his age. But perhaps he was incited to autograph the wall by the ...
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What the staff and patients think
Willie Reid (left), medical director, says the task has now changed from trying to convince clinicians that the PFI project would come to fruition, to trying to persuade them that the 30-year deal will work. The hospital is 'light years ahead of what we had before', he says. He is ...
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What the new hospital offers
The entrance to the new Cumberland Infirmary is bathed in light from a huge, etched glass panel above the doorway and from the transparent roof which stretches over the entire walkway, leading past day surgery, outpatients, A&E and the X-ray department. The bright and airy walkway is the 'backbone' of ...
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The long march towards a PFI
1975 A plan to build a single-site hospital is conceived. For years the plan is shelved as health chiefs' hopes are repeatedly dashed.
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The name's Bond
You might prefer to leave management of the PFI investment to the advisers, but, as Paul Whittlestone explains, a basic grasp of corporate finance could be handy
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A bluffer's guide to project finance
Bonds An alternative to bank finance which, depending on market conditions and the risks associated with a project, may be cheaper, if less flexible.
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Government gives go-ahead on 'Diane Blood' cases
The government has decided to allow a father's name to be recorded on a child's birth certificate when his sperm has been used after his death and to allow changes to be made retrospectively. This will allow Diane Blood, who fought for the right to use her dead husband's sperm ...
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Specialists call for extra cash to remedy geriatric care's 'failings'
Geriatric care specialists called yesterday for NHS funding for care homes to be doubled to tackle 'haphazard' services.
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Beta interferon appeals flood in
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has received eight appeals against its decision on the use of beta interferon in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
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Korner data pioneer dies
NHS information pioneer Edith Korner and her husband Professor Stephan Korner have been found dead at their home in Bristol. Police do not regard the deaths as suspicious.
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monitor
Great to hear that even bouncer Milburn's special advisers have a sense of humour! Hard to imagine, though! Still, news in from one of Monitor's special friends to reveal that the day after the NHS plan emerged, the following message was heard on the answerphone at special advisers HQ: 'Our ...
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Less is more
That the NHS plan has so little to say on mental health is actually a sign that the government is pretty much on the ball in this area. Laura Donnelly explains the paradox
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Cut to the chase
The NHS has long been thought of as a soft touch for criminals. But now managers are being given the chance to catch fraudsters. Mark Gould reports
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1066 and all that
When King Harold got it in the eye, there was no anaesthetic, no blood transfusion - not even a pair of spectacles. A new chronology ofmedicine should add a little perspective to those with tension headaches. Lynne Greenwood reports
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Fading from the scene - an unworthy end for HAZs
If this once-cherished initiative is to go, ministers must tell us straight