DH superhospital fiasco

The implementation of a plan to merge and renew three out of date hospitals into a superhospital in London has been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee. The original plan estmated the total cost to be £300m and the project to be completed by 2006. But my May 2005 costs had risen to £894m and the hospital was expected to be finished only by 2013. The superhospital plans were cancelled in June 2006 after 5 years of struggle to get the project on course.

The Department of Health left the planning and managing of such a huge project to local staff who were not capable of overseeing the work carried out by DH's chosen PFI partners. The department did not set out sound plans from the outset and it was made worse by the fact that the creation of the superhotel was left in the hands of amateur and incompetent civil servants.  

DH responded to the PAC report by saying that it took their findings seriously and will learn from its past mistakes. A mistake of spending almost 5 years without any success and spending up to £15m......