Private finance and “value for money” in NHS hospitals: a policy in search of a rationale?

The authors of this article, Allyson Pollock and colleagues (18 May, pp 1205-9), would like to correct some of the statements that they made. In the first sentence of the results (and again in the discussion, under “The higher costs of PFI”) the costs of raising the finance should be 29%, not 39%. In the second paragraph of the results the second sentence should start: “In all [not both] cases the annual cost of capital rises steeply . . .”; and the third sentence should start: “In the case of North Durham the PFI costs are almost double . . .” In the discussion, in the second paragraph of the section “The higher costs of PFI” the second sentence should read: “The cost of private capital as a percentage of trusts' annual revenue expenditure rises from an average of 8% to up to 32.7% [not 27%] in the case of Dartford.”