New Oxfordshire health facilities worth £300m will end up costing taxpayers £1.86bn over the next 30 years because of the Private Finance Initiative, it has been revealed.
It means three schemes given the go-ahead in Oxford since Labour came to power in 1997 will end up costing more than six times as much as their capital.
Andrew Lansley, the Tory health spokesman who obtained the figures, said they exposed the Government's use of 30-year PFI contracts as "lunacy".
Under PFI, a private sector consortium builds and maintains facilities, providing services such as catering and cleaning, in return for annual payments, typically for 30 years.
Ministers have insisted only the use of PFI will allow a record 100 new hospitals to be built quickly between 1997 and 2010.
In Oxfordshire, the biggest cost discrepancy is for a children's hospital and an adult wing housing neuroscience and other services at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. The facilities, run by Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, are due to open at the beginning of next year.
According to Department of Health figures, the capital value of the project is £134m, but over 30 years the contractors will receive £872.2m - more than six times as much.
A separate scheme to build a new cancer centre and other facilities on the site of the Churchill Hospital, in Headington, due to open in 2008, will set the trust back £756.9m over three decades - nearly six times the £129m capital costs.
The redevelopment of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington is valued at £37m but the Nuffield Orthopaedic NHS Trust will pay £239.4m.
Across England, private contractors will receive a total of £53bn for about 80 hospitals worth only £8bn.
Mr Lansley said: "The extra cost of £45bn is complete lunacy in the context of an NHS under intolerable financial pressure."
But Andy Burnham, a health minister, said: "Cost value relates to capital construction. Repayment covers the cost of maintaining each PFI hospital over 30 years - for example, the cost of feeding patients, cleaning a hospital, maintaining the building."
A spokesman for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust said: "The trust has secured very competitive deals with its PFI partners.
"These partnerships mean that the Trust is able to build first class, modern healthcare facilities which will serve the population of Oxfordshire and beyond for many years to come."
A spokesman for the Nuffield Trust said the redevelopment of the NOC would provide "modern state-of-the-art facilities in purpose-built buildings designed for modern healthcare".
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