Private firm wins ‘unsafe’ £300m children’s contract

HCRG Care Group will take over the Surrey children’s services from April. The contract covers a range of services including targeted and specialist medical, nursing and therapies; prevention; and child development. Its term is six years, with a possible two-year extension.

The service is currently provided by Surrey and Borders Partnership Foundation Trust, in partnership with two local social enterprises, First Community Health and Care and Central Surrey Health.

After the new contract was proposed, they said the proposed funding was inadequate and began legal action against Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board, one of the commissioners.

They said the commissioners — which also include Frimley ICB, Surrey County Council and NHS England — were proposing insufficient funding across several services, which raised “significant concerns about safety for the children and families of Surrey.”

According to commissioners, four bids were received for the contract, which is worth £295m over 96 months, covering Surrey Heartlands and parts of North East Hampshire.

HCRG CEO Patrick Birchall said the firm had gone through a robust process to make sure it could afford to deliver the service within the new envelope. “We take some confidence from where we have been doing this elsewhere,” he added. “Modernising the services will help with the costs of providing it.”

A key part of this will be an app offering families information, and the ability to make and move appointments, the firm said – although there will be other ways of making appointments and accessing information to avoid digital exclusion, Mr Birchall said.

He added: “We will be integrating some of the parts of the service which are currently in silos. A family will engage once through the app and we will provide the services through integrated teams.”

Staff will transfer to the new provider. ”We have got models for how our services are run. In terms of skill mix, we will have to look at what we are inheriting,” Mr Birchall added.

HCRG Care Group, which is owned by private equity firm Twenty20Capital, was born out of Virgin Care, which had bid for the existing contract in 2017. When Virgin Care lost, it started High Court proceedings against NHSE, Surrey County Council and the then clinical commissioning groups. They settled the case out of court. 

The existing providers did not want to comment, and the commissioners said they were confident in the procurement process.