letters

Published: 08/08/2002, Volume II2, No. 5817 Page 23

The headline of your news story, 'Cost and complexity of PFI could result in major player bowing out' (pages 8-9, 18 July).

is hardly consistent with the text in which you quote our spokeswoman: 'We see health becoming an increasingly important part of our activity'.

On our internal review, about which you say we were unavailable for comment, neither I, nor our public relations department, were asked to comment. Had we been, we would have explained that the full results of the review will be known in the autumn. We would have also made clear that we are reviewing our approach to bidding, not whether we plan to stay in the market for developing innovative public private partnerships with central and local government. Amey will continue to be a major player in the private finance initiative/ public-private initiative market.

We will avoid schemes where we judge the cost of bidding not to be commensurate with the expected returns, but we will continue to look for opportunities to work with the NHS in genuine partnerships, where we can bring our skills to bear on the modernisation of services for patients.

Vanessa Beamont Amey