Call to send cash to workers hit by failed waste contractor

A CALL has been been made for NHS payments to a failed clinical waste contractor to be diverted to workers let go at Christmas without wages.

The Herald on Sunday has reported health boards owe Healthcare Environmental Services Limited (HES) around £450,000 and they continued to pay the firm after it stopped fulfilling its contract to manage NHS clinical waste.

HES ceased trading after being caught up in a row over stockpiling medical waste with the NHS last year, laying off hundreds of workers in December.

MSPs have been told of a backlog of between 250 and 300 tonnes of clinical waste and 10 tonnes of anatomical waste at Scottish HES sites in Dundee and Shotts, North Lanarkshire.

Labour’s shadow health secretary Monica Lennon said: “It is appalling that the NHS continued to pay HES hundreds of thousands of pounds despite knowing the firm was not fulfilling its obligations and it is a further insult to the workers who were dumped without pay at Christmas. Any outstanding sums should be put into a fund for the workers.

“Jeane Freeman must open the books and reveal the true cost of the HES scandal to our NHS.”