Payments should go to staff

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

A Sunday newspaper 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.

Now Scottish Labour has said the money should go to the unpaid staff.

The party’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.

“The clinical waste scandal has exposed the incompetence at the heart of the Scottish Government.

“Any outstanding sums should be put into a fund for the workers.”