The Guardian reports that doctors, campaign groups, academics and MPs have raised concerns that the government is using the coronavirus pandemic to transfer key public health duties from the NHS and other state bodies to the private sector without proper scrutiny after it emerged on Monday that Serco was in pole position to win a deal to supply 15,000 call-handlers for the government’s tracking and tracing operation.
They said the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had “accelerated” the dismantling of state healthcare and that the duty to keep the public safe was being “outsourced” to the private sector.
Ministers have used special powers to bypass normal tendering in recent weeks and awarded several contracts to private companies and management consultants without open competition.
Full story in The Guardian, 4 May 2020
