By Sharon Alcock BBC Health Reporter

Multi-million pound facilities to treat patients with heart disease and cancer are standing empty for much of the day at King Edward V11 hospital in Midhurst, West Sussex.

The independant, charitable hospital faces liquidation on Friday if a business partner isn't found.

Its 50-year partnership with the NHS - a model for public-private partnerships in the future - hit crisis because the NHS Trusts who've been sending their patients for specialist care and to clear waiting lists - were unable to promise future business in the form of a contract.

Negotiations with an American hospital charity organisation fell apart several weeks ago because, despite treating more than twelve thousand NHS patients a year alongside their private customers, King Edward's couldn't offer a guarantee of 'bottoms on beds'.

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King Edward's is everything you might expect from a private hospital.

A sweeping drive through manicured gardens takes you to the beautiful Edwardian edifice; a pleasant reception area - currently showing video footage from the staff's demonstrations in Westminster on a loop - and freshly painted, spacious corridors.

I've been treated wonderfully Marion Houseden

There are private en suite rooms rooms with wrought iron balconies and their own bird feeders.

But it's not just fee-paying patients who don't wish to chance waiting lists who enjoy 'K7' - thousands of NHS patients needing heart investigations or surgery and cancer victims are referred here.

They do hips, knees and eyes as well - all of which suffer the longest waits at nearby NHS Trusts.

There is a Macmillan centre here for chronically ill and terminal patients, a back pain clinic and CT scanner - paid for by charitable donations like much of the equipment.

Heart operation

Marion Houseden, from Guildford, is recovering from heart surgery.

She was waiting for an angiogram at St Thomas's in London after suffering chest pain.

People are actually staying in NHS hospital beds for three to four weeks waiting for transfer to a regional centre for treatment, which we could provide here Simon Allen

Friends urged her not to wait for the two months it would take to discover the problem and persuaded her to pay for the proceedure at King Edward's.

It showed she had such serious heart disease, she needed a quadruple bypass.

Her cardiologist - who also works at a top NHS London heart hospital - wouldn't let her off the bed.

But the NHS paid for her open heart surgery at K7.

"The consultant implied to my husband that I might not have made it to the appointment in London," Mrs Houseden said.

"Once they got the funding, we were able to relax and I really enjoyed the lovely surroundings here. I've been treated wonderfully."

Lost contract

King Edward's used to perform more than 200 heart operations for the Isle of Wight a year, until the contract went to a new cardiac centre at Brighton's NHS hospital.

It was the mainstay of their income for the brand new cardiac theatre.

They still get patients from the Isle of Wight - but now they've travelled from the island, to Brighton, only to be referred back to Midhurst because of a waiting list overflow.

Their operations now cost the NHS more, says Chairman Tricia Saunders, because a handful are more difficult to fund than a block booking.

Cardiac charge nurse Simon Allen is frustrated that his shining pin of a treatment laboratory, and eight-bed recovery unit stands empty..

"The current unit we're standing in is only six months old - it's state of the art material with a clean-air system, and the latest equipment - we can treat up to 2,000 patients a year - or about ten a day - but we're currently working at under half capacity.

"People are actually staying in NHS hospital beds for three to four weeks waiting for transfer to a regional centre for treatment, which we could provide here."

No bad management

Chief executive Lynn Way, fresh out of talks with a team of grey-suited NHS officials, denies the crisis has come about because of bad management and high fees..

"The accusation that we're more expensive is untrue because we've offered to make available our facilities at NHS standard reference prices, which means we'll be offering services to the NHS at a price which they'll accept from every other independant hospital in the country.

"But we need volume - its no good keeping a fully staffed cardiac surgical facility operational when its only being used 50% of the time - its not good business sense.

"I had great hopes for the government's public-private plans - we want to help and have been helping with NHS targets and pressures.

"We predicted we'd see increasing numbers of NHS patients, but instead NHS cash-flow problems mean we're underused when patients are being sent abroad to France, Belgium and Germany at greater cost.

"Now we may close and our facilities will be lost to the NHS."

Meeting targets

Upstairs consultant clinical oncologist and head of cancer services, Dr Stephen Whittacker has just finished a busy radiotherapy clinic.

He works most of the time as clinical director of St Luke's NHS cancer centre in Guildford.

But King Edward V11 has multi-million pound facilities his NHS unit can't do without if government targets are to be met.

So he sees many of his waiting list patients at Midhurst.

"At Guildford our waiting time currently for radical treatment - potentially curative radiotherapy - is seven to eight weeks.

"That's longer than we would like as clinicians. If this centre closes, those lists will get two or three weeks longer, and similarly at other departments, particularly Southampton.

"There was going to be a new high-powered radiotherapy machine here in the Spring - it would have been one of just a handful in the country which could treat cancer more effectively. Those plans are on hold."