Paddington health PFI review a ‘whitewash’

The review into the botched £800m Paddington Health Campus (PHC) scheme has been labelled a "whitewash" by campaigners after its terms of reference, published last week, revealed that it will not seek to blame any individual or organisation.

The review has been set up by the North West London Strategic Health Authority (SHA) after its decision to ditch the project last month. The scheme floundered after the project team failed to agree a land deal with property developer Chelsfield. By then, the cost of preparing the scheme had mounted to £14m.

The terms of reference were agreed last week by the board of the North West London SHA. In a statement, it said: "The intention of the review is to ensure lessons are learned from the experience of planning and implementing the project, and to improve the quality of future similar PFI projects across the wider NHS."

It added: "It is not part of the review team’s brief to allocate or apportion blame or fault to any individual or organisation."

However, seasoned campaigner Jean Brett, who led the campaign against the scheme, said: "How can anything be learnt from this review if no one is to take responsibility for wasting £14m of taxpayers’ money?"

Brett’s campaign group advised St Mary’s Hospital NHS Trust to drop the scheme five years ago. She said: "From that point on, Julian Nettel, St Mary’s chief executive, should have been concentrating on the future of St Mary’s in Paddington. Instead he chased a mirage."

She also accused Dr Gareth Goodier, boss of North West London SHA, of failing to listen. Dr Goodier said: "This was a bold and innovative scheme, but that does not mean it should not have been pursued."

John Randall, Tory MP for Uxbridge called for an independent inquiry by the National Audit Office (NAO). He told CJ: "Why can’t the review name and shame? If this turns out to be a whitewash, I will be pressing for the NAO to get involved."

The NAO has already asked to be kept informed of the review’s findings. The NAO will also report to the chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts.

The review will be chaired by Nigel Vince, a consultant with the Office of Government Commerce, who has led similar reviews of high-risk projects for the Department of Health and the Ministry of Defence. The review is expected to take two months to complete. The closing date for submissions is 8 August.