'Super-hospital' costs defended

The Point Building could cost £6m-a year

Health chiefs have defended a PFI hospital project against criticism that its spiralling costs are taking money from patients.

The proposed Paddington Health Campus due to be built on the current St Mary's Hospital site, would also merge services from the Royal Brompton, Harefield Hospital and research from Imperial College.

The original plan was estimated to cost £360m. But costs have since increased to £800m and are expected to rise further.

Now developers are negotiating with owners of the Point Building, which was to be mobile phone company Orange's headquarters, to turn it into an out-patients department and GP clinic on a 37 year lease.

It could cost the NHS £6m-a-year in rent, which campaigners against the scheme say should be spent on patient services.

Jean Brett, who is leading the campaign to stop care services at Harefield Hospital being moved, said NHS managers should be more careful with public funds.

We will move from Dickensian facilities to state-of-the-art facilities Dr Gareth Goodier, Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust

She told BBC London: "They are not a business firm, they are a public service and they should be careful to go for reasonable costs, because every penny that goes on expensive buildings or on 'jollies' is not going into patient services."

But Dr Gareth Goodier, from the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, said: "The costs have certainly escalated, but the project has changed.

"We have embraced the new consumerist design features which mean there will be more single rooms and more space for each patient.

"And the whole project has increased in size by about 20% so it is understandable that the cost has gone up accordingly."

He dismissed suggestions the complex, which does not yet have full planning permission, would never go ahead and said they expected the whole campus to be completed by 2013.

"It is a very exciting project which delivers much-improved patient care," he added.

"We will move from Dickensian facilities with Nightingale wards to state-of-the-art facilities with 30% single rooms and vastly improved opportunities for clinical research."