Hospitals built under the controversial Private Finance Initiative will become 'white elephants' which have to shut wards or close altogether, a leading authority on the NHS has warned.

Tony Harrison, a research fellow at the King's Fund, fears some PFI hospitals will be left with too few patients because of the recent policy shift by the government towards treating more people at primary-care level in communities.

One or two of those already built using the scheme will 'either close or be drastically reduced in scale', Harrison warns in an investigation into PFI by Channel 4's Dispatches programme, to be broadcast tomorrow. At least parts of them 'will become white elephants because it's very diffi cult to redeploy hospital activity and do other things,' he adds.

Critics claim that while PFI-funded public-sector facilities such as hospitals and schools save the government money because private companies pay for their construction, the long-term cost to whichever public body inherits them is far greater than if the taxpayer had paid for them at the outset.

Harrison, an expert on the financing of the health service, criticises ministers for continuing to approve PFI projects . 'It doesn't make sense to lock yourself into those contracts when you know you are going to have to shift course during that period,' he says.

The Department of Health last night dismissed Harrison's predictions. ' If schemes are appropriate for their local area and are value for money, why would they be white elephants?' said a spokeswoman.

Eighty-three hospital projects have been built using the PFI since Labour was elected in 1997. The target is to increase that to 100 by 2010.

· Dispatches: Public Service, Private Profit is aired on Channel 4 at 8pm tomorrow