Health centres Ministers pay £6m for advice on using PPPS to build clinics

Ministers have handed firms £6m in contracts to help devise plans to build a network of new NHS clinics using private capital, despite fears the move could turn into a PFI-style disaster.

- Denis Campbell Health policy editor

The Department of Health and Social Care has awarded contracts worth £3m each to the management consultants Deloitte and the lawyers Addleshaw Goddard. They are advising the DHSC on whether to use public-private partnerships (PPPs) to help build dozens of the promised “neighbourhood health centres” in England.

In a hint that Labour may decide to join forces with private finance companies on the project, DHSC’s remit to Deloitte and Addleshaw Goddard also includes “potentially supporting [DHSC] through the procurement” of the clinics, which initially will be in deprived parts of the country.