One of the Conservatives’ biggest ever donors has profited from £135m of contracts with the Department of Health and Social Care in under four years. Frank Hester, a healthcare tech … Read more
commissioning
openDemocracy reports that the former head of MI6 introduced Palantir to a top government official in the Cabinet Office a year before the US spy tech firm won a £27m … Read more
The Guardian reports that Rishi Sunak is facing questions over a possible conflict of interest after it emerged that a private healthcare firm handed a government contract to reduce regional … Read more
The Guardian reports that the UK government is unlikely to recover any money from a healthcare recruitment agency that allegedly failed to deliver on a multimillion-pound PPE contract awarded during … Read more
HSJ reports that NHS England has awarded Palantir a new £24.9m contract to “transition” its existing NHS projects into the new federated data platform – a £480m deal expected to … Read more
Practice Plus Group (PPG) is taking legal action against NHS England over the award of contracts for prison healthcare in the South West, lodging papers with the High Court alleging one … Read more
Two weeks ago, the Lowdown took a detailed look at the situation of the private healthcare sector. We were seeking to understand why – after 13 years of policies promoting privatisation and … Read more
OpenDemocracy reports that the private hospital sector saw 6.6% fewer people in 2022 than 2019, despite lucrative contracts to fix wait lists. The government handed almost half a billion pounds … Read more
According to a recent report in the (£paywalled) Times, Rishi Sunak’s so-called “elective recovery task force,” steered no doubt by its private sector participants, is planning new legislation this summer … Read more
Staff and patients at Withnell Health Centre have won their campaign, – followed recently inThe Lowdown), against Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), which has now agreed to … Read more
With no long-term NHS workforce strategy on the horizon, the government’s default policy on slashing elective waiting lists – pushing more NHS patients towards private hospitals dependent on NHS-trained staff … Read more
The decision by Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) to award a contract to run a well-loved and successful GP practice in Chorley, Lancashire, to SSP Health, a … Read more
Four urgent care treatment centres run by Partnership of East London Co-operatives (PELC) Limited have been rated ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and put in special measures. The centres, King George’s Emergency … Read more
The Guardian reports that the Conservative peer, Andrew Feldman, a former Conservative party chair advising the government during the coronavirus pandemic, helped a company secure PPE contracts worth £50m after … Read more
The Times reports that Philip Johnson, majority owner and CEO of RamFoam, whose company made a £70 million profit on a contract for PPE that was mostly unused has paid … Read more
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has claimed that staff mistakes at Immensa Laboratories in Wolverhampton may have caused 23 extra deaths from Covid-19. The report said as many as … Read more
Byline Times reports that companies that were referred by Conservative MPs and peers to the expedited ‘VIP’ lane for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts during the pandemic have seen their … Read more
A Pulse investigation into the continued problems of the Primary Care Support Services contract run by Capita since 2015 reveals that many problems remain. It’s been seven years since NHS … Read more
HSJ reports that NHS England is assessing the viability of establishing an NHS-owned consortium to bring some of the diagnostic work currently being done for profit in the private sector … Read more
This week will see government ministers under pressure to explain how they assessed that a personal protective equipment (PPE) company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone was fit to receive government … Read more
