Virgin health firm’s £2bn of NHS contracts in 5 years

VIRGIN has won almost £2billion of NHS contracts over the past five years, a study claims.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Care runs community services, healthcare in low-security jails, GPs’ surgeries, and school flu jab programmes across England.

Tory ministers are accused of “dangerous experiments in privatisation” after it emerged that the firm and its subsidiaries won contracts worth a potential £1.8billion over five years. Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt this year admitted private spending had risen from 4.9% to 7.7% of NHS funds since 2010.

Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, Justin Madders, said: “After the biggest funding squeeze in NHS history, it is essential that every penny is going to frontline services and to improving patient care, rather than padding out private profits. This Government’s privatisation agenda is a huge threat to care.”

Sara Gorton, of Unison union, said: “Taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be wasted on these dangerous experiments in privatisation.”

Dr Robert Harwood, of the British Medical Association, said: “The introduction of a competitive procurement framework has been detrimental to the health service.”

PM Theresa May’s spokesman said: “Private sector spending remains proportionately low.”

A spokesman for Virgin Care said: “We have not made a profit to date, investing all money in delivering the services we run.”