Three bid for batched NHS hospital projects

Three groups will pick up the tender paperwork in the autumn for the second in the NHS's programme of batched private finance hospital deals.
In the waiting room for the latest scheme, worth up to £122m, are Arden (Costain/Alfred McAlpine); Investors in Health (Balfour Beatty/Mill Group); and Carillion.
The project - which batches mental health, community hospital and learning disability services for the first time - involves three NHS Trusts.
These are: Derbyshire Mental Health Services, offering schemes worth £25.6m; East Lincolnshire Primary Care, which has £24.9m-worth of projects; and the Leicestershire Partnership, which has a spend of £7.2m with a further optional scheme worth £65m.
The trio of bidders will have four months to develop and finalise bids, with the preferred partner expected to be on board by spring 2005.
Balfour Beatty also made the final cut (alongside Equion and Bovis) for the first batched scheme - the northern area deal.
The batching initiative involves bringing several trusts and contracts together instead of contractors having to pitch for them as single projects.
The thinking is that batching allows both public and private sectors to work more closely together to deliver the schemes and to reduce the cost of tendering.