It is noteworthy that after more than sixty years of the NHS, it can be claimed that the services are still more or less free at the point of use. As a Civitas report has pointed out, sick patients in the UK very rarely fail to use medical services on the grounds of costs (as compared to the USA and Germany).

Given the much higher financing costs of private capital, it is hardly surprising to find that PFI schemes are generally poor value for money. This is not just true of hospitals but of other PFI projects as well.