At its recent board meeting the Great Western Hospitals Foundation Trust has signalled that it must resolve the conflict with Carillion which provides its food and cleaning services – both of which have been subject to recent criticism.
The problem for GWH is that they do not own the contract with Carillion. It is GWH’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funder, Semparian PPP Investment Partners, which contracts Carillion to provide services to GWH valued at about £11.6 million a year.
Lawyers have been briefed and the Board has summoned both Carillion and Semparian to present to a meeting of the full Board their plan for resolving all the outstanding issues with “unambiguous timescales so the Board can hold them to account”.
Last April the Carillion kitchens were given a one star rating for hygiene by Swindon Council. And last October the Care Quality Commission noted concerns about cleanliness.
The board report said these failings had posed a “potential risk to patients, visitors and staff” – a “completely unacceptable” state of affairs: “The Trust has lost confidence in Carillion’s ability to resolve these issues, and the Trust continues to pursue all necessary means to ensure they remain focused on addressing them.”
Semparian also own the PFI agreement for Savernake Hospital. This was taken over by GWH when the Lansley reorganisation ruled out commissioners (such as the Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group) owning buildings.
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