Kier’s £20m PFI healthcare deal

A group led by Kier has reached the head of the queue for a £20m deal to build a privately financed ambulatory care and diagnostic (ACAD) centre in Cambridgeshire.

The Prospect Healthcare consortium is preferred bidder for the centre, to be built in Huntingdon, and expects to reach financial close with client Hinchingbrooke NHS Trust in June 2003.

Work to build the centre on the Hinchingbrooke Hospital site is due to start a month later for completion within 20 months.

French Kier Anglia will carry out the building work, with Caxton Services responsible for the facilities management aspects of the deal.

Funding will come from Innisfree, the fourth member of the consortium.

The doors have now closed on bids from two other groups that got through to the final stages of the selection procedure.

They are Healthlink (featuring a Morrison/Mace jv) and Costain.

Two other outfits originally pitched for the 6,750m2 scheme - Rydon and Laing O'Rourke. Italian firm Impregilo was also shortlisted but pulled out of bidding.

The ACAD project includes six day surgery theatres, two ophthalmic theatres, an outpatients' department with consulting and treatment rooms, and a satellite X-ray department together with ultrasound and mammography rooms.

The Hinchingbrooke scheme is part of the government's plan to develop 20 ACAD centres by 2004.

The aim is to have eight of the centres operational by 2004.