Conman SNP donor in £2m NHS contract

THE Scottish Government is embroiled in another cronyism row after giving NHS funds of £2million to a firm linked to a party donor.

Lanarkshire- based I T provider Nugensis won favoured status in a deal unveiled last year by then Health Secretary Alex Neil.

Ministers handed hospital chiefs an extra £2.2million – on the condition that it was spent on the company’s WardView app, a patient data-tracking system.

Jamie Rae – a former SNP councillor, convicted fraudster and donor to Mr Neil’s 2011 election campaign – had joined the Nugensis board three months earlier.

MSPs and a ri val f i rm yesterday demanded answers over the NHS funding

‘Alex Neil should explain his role’

for WardView. Savantech, based in Livingston, West Lothian, has a similar system called eWard which has been used across NHS Forth Valley since 2006.

It was hailed as a ‘big hit’ among staff in a Scottish Government briefing in 2010.

Savantech director Brad Connor said: ‘Governments don’t work like that, surely? We weren’t aware of any tendering process. We could have presented a compelling alternative. I would be interested to see how that process worked and who made the decisions.’

The deal follows Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop’s award of £150,000 of taxpayers’ cash to DF Concerts to stage T in the Park, despite the company earning millions in profits.

Jennifer Dempsie, a former aide to Alex Salmond who is bidding to stand as a Nationalist MSP next year, arranged access to government ministers while working for DF.

Any contract worth more than £111,676 should go to tender – but it is unclear how the Nugensis deal was arrived at.

Scottish Lib Dems leader Willie Rennie said: ‘Alex Neil should explain his role. We need to have confidence in the NHS procurement process.’

A Scottish Conservatives spokesman said: ‘ There is no r oom f or cronyism in public life.’

Mr Rae, 50, became an SNP councillor in Falkirk aged 27, but was jailed for 15 months in 1997 for mortgage and benefit fraud. On his release, he set up a recycling company which he sold for millions in 2011.

He gave £10,012 to the SNP, £1,525 to the Airdrie and Shotts branch – the constituency won by Mr Neil – and £1,500 to the branch in Falkirk West, constituency of then Public Health minister Michael Matheson.

Mr Rae is a prominent member of pro-independence group Business f or Scotland. A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘WardView is one of several cutting- edge technology options. Mr Neil announced funding for the roll-out of such technology in May 2013 after excellent r esults i n NHS Borders.

‘ Expert clinicians from around Scotland confirmed their support for WardView.’

Nobody from Nugensis was available to comment.