SIR – James Connell’s article on the NHS (August 27th) claims that Worcester Royal Hospital could not have been built without Private Finance Imitative (PFI).

I would suggest this is not quite true.

It could have been built with standard government borrowing.

PFI was originally introduced by the last Conservative government who were trying to find a way to hide their borrowing figures from the public.

Tony Blair and his sidekick the then Chancellor Gordon Brown, in an attempt to persist with the deception in their handling of the economy, continued using PFI to build hospitals, schools and public buildings rather than increase government borrowing. In so doing so, they have unnecessarily incurred millions of pounds in interest costs over long-term repayment periods, all of which have to be paid by the taxpayer, which is one of the reasons why so many of our hospitals recently found themselves in so much debt.

In using PFI they also lost control in design, capacity, management and adjoining land and building development. I believe the National Health Service should stay as such.

Letting off sections to the private sector will only lead to control going outside this country with a reducing service based on profits for shareholder dividends as has happened with most of our essential services.

TONY EAVES, Worcester.