Taxpayers will foot bill for shortfall on PFI hospital upgrades

Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' cash will be needed to bring the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) up to scratch when it transfers to public ownership next year, BBC Scotland can reveal.

The RIE was built in 2002 using the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model which saw operator Consort Healthcare receive around £1bn to build and then maintain the hospital over 25 years before handing it back to the NHS.

NHS Lothian and Consort were locked in a four-year dispute about maintenance standards at the RIE but have now reached a deal where Consort will set aside up to £86m for upgrades.

However, an NHS Lothian assessment said this sum is "anticipated to fall well short" of what is needed.

The hospital building has been subject to a number of safety enforcement notices from Scotland's fire service and work to comply with the necessary upgrades is likely to top £90m alone, according to health board documents.

Other required improvements include new lighting, ventilation and electrical systems.

Some of the works are already under way while others will stretch beyond the date of the official handover to NHS Lothian.

Experts have questioned the value to the public purse from the handover deal with Consort, which they describe as "too little, too late".

However, NHS Lothian has said it is the "best value option" and represents a significant investment that may not have been secured otherwise.

The PFI deal, signed by Tony Blair's Labour UK government, is expected to have cost the taxpayer more than £1bn by the time it expires in December next year.

The hospital has faced a number of maintenance problems since opening, including a series of power outages in 2003 .

Consort was handed a list of infrastructure issues that needed rectified by NHS Lothian in 2022.

BBC Scotland understands the volume of issues with the building in recent years triggered something in the PFI contract called a "serious issue event" which would have allowed the health board to walk away from the deal and find another provider.

However, it was decided that the potential disruption to both clinical care and the ongoing programme of maintenance meant this was not worth pursuing.