PFI pay-off

There is no question of the new University College London hospital belonging to a private consortium at the end of the PFI contract (Francis Wheen, September 29). The consortium will build our new NHS hospital on NHS land, maintain it in top condition, then hand it back to the NHS in that same top condition. With traditional public procurement, the NHS builds lovely new hospitals and often, for want of a decent maintenance budget, sees them rapidly dilapidate. The consortium will have to finish our new hospital on time and within a pre-agreed price at their risk. PFI is a developing procurement system and we who are pioneering it are still learning how to overcome some of its flaws. But traditional public sector procurement is scarcely perfect.
Peter Reading
Chief executive, University College London Hospitals