A box of personal protective equipment (PPE) which was sold to the NHS by Clandeboyes, a Northern Ireland sweets wholesaler, that cost the taxpayer more than £1,000 during the first … Read more
Coronavirus
David Meller, a Conservative party donor who supported Michael Gove’s Tory leadership bid, won £164m in Covid contracts after the minister referred his firm to a “VIP lane” that awarded … Read more
Alun Cairns, a former Welsh secretary, took a £15,000-a-year job at a diagnostics company a few weeks before it was part of a consortium that secured a £75 million government … Read more
The Times has reported that Randox, the diagnostics company that paid Owen Paterson as a lobbyist, won a £133 million Covid-19 testing contract days before government officials concluded that it … Read more
The government’s test-and-trace system, run by Serco and several other private providers, has failed to achieve “its main objective” to cut infection levels and help Britain return to normal despite … Read more
Immensa, a private laboratory in Wolverhampton that is under investigation for potentially issuing more than 40,000 false negative Covid tests, was not fully accredited to perform the work, contrary to … Read more
Dr Ashraf Chohan, founder and chair of Conservative Friends of the NHS, which aims to forge ties between politicians and healthcare workers in the private and public sectors, and his son … Read more
The Times reports that former Conservative councillor, Steve Dechan, received a £120 million government contract for face shields whose quality is so doubtful that fewer than 1 in 400 have … Read more
The Guardian has seen internal emails that suggest the government gave “VIP treatment” to a firm offering Covid testing facilities which had entered the system “informally” because Matt Hancock was “a good … Read more
Serco has been awarded a new contract worth up to £322 million to continue running Covid-19 testing sites for another year. The company now runs 20% of centres in England and … Read more
A report from the National Audit Office has found that almost 600m lateral flow tests given to the public in England may not yet have been used and that the … Read more
Two contracts for contact tracers with Serco and Sitel have been extended by six months by the Department of Health and Social Care for an additional cost of £168m. Serco … Read more
A report by a local council in the North East of England has found that failures in England’s Test and Trace system are partly responsible for a surge in the … Read more
A court has heard that ministers “lobbied” officials to chase the progress of contracts for the supply of personal protective equipment that were being processed through a government “VIP lane” … Read more
The High Court has heard how the NatWest suspended Matt Hancock’s team from making payments to PPE suppliers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic over fears they were being … Read more
The Independent has learnt that at a “critical juncture” in the pandemic, thousands of clinical staff working on contact tracing for the government’s test and trace service will be axed. The … Read more
The government has been urged to publish details of up to £2bn in Covid-19 contracts to provide extra capacity during the pandemic awarded to private healthcare companies, including some that have … Read more
Sir David King, a former government chief scientist, in an interview in The Guardian has accused Boris Johnson’s government of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and … Read more
Byline Times and The Citizens overview of contract awards reveals that one year after the first COVID-19 lockdown almost a billion pounds in Government contracts has been awarded to 15 … Read more
A response from the Department of Health and Social Care to local MP Matt Western has insisted that the new Leamington Spa “mega-lab” is “publicly owned and operated,” despite staff being recruited … Read more
