NHS Digital paid at least £3m to Axiologik, whose co-founder and director Ben Davison also served as NHS Digital’s executive director of product delivery – for which he received annual pay of £260,000, working as a contractor, in 2020-21.
The organisation has also come under fire from the Treasury, which found NHSD breached payment rules for Mr Davison and two other contractors during the pandemic.
In September 2020, less than nine months after Mr Davison’s appointment, Axiologik was hired by NHSD to provide “programme and delivery leadership” for the covid-19 National Booking Service.
Two months later – in November 2020 – the firm was also hired to lead NHSD’s “tech and data workstream” which involved “portfolio level executive leadership across citizen-facing digital services” run by NHSD such as the NHS App, NHS.uk website and 111 Online.
All these projects were part of NHSD’s product portfolio, which was overseen by Mr Davison in his role as executive director of products until he left NHSD in September 2021.
Full story in The HSJ, 18 February 2022
