Commissioners in Sussex paid a total of £642,000 in wages to former NHS staff after their private company employer ceased trading, HSJ can reveal.
Alan Beasley, the chief finance officer for High Weald and Lewes Clinical Commissioning Group, said he would be “exploring all avenues” to recover the cash from Docklands Medical Services, which provided patient transport services in Sussex until it ceased trading last summer.
He insisted that the payment will not set a precedent for other private providers to expect a bail out.
The circumstances of the payment were “unique”, Mr Beasley told HSJ. “We are not setting a precedent in terms of other private sector contracts that we might have. Those were ex gratia payments, not contractual payments.”
The 71 former South East Coast Ambulance Service Foundation Trust workers at the centre of the dispute twice lost their jobs when two private patient transport companies – VM Langfords and Docklands Medical Services – ceased trading in rapid succession last summer….read more
