A private company that lost a Test and Protect contract - sparking job chaos for hundreds of staff - has been handed back a new £4million deal.
Pursuit Marketing in Glasgow previously handled a £10million contract for the NHS service but had to transfer operations and around 600 staff to two new companies at short notice when it lost out on a £60m renewed deal five months ago.
Now the firm has won an additional contract to provide around 300 staff assisting the National Contact Centre.
Around 30% of the contact tracing workforce is currently made up of privately-contracted workers.
The First Minister previously denied tracing was being outsourced and Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said in March there would be a “significant reduction” in private sector involvement as sufficient numbers of NHS staff are available.
But National Services Scotland (NSS), which provides procurement and logistics for the NHS, said the extra workers at Pursuit would help roll out the vaccine booster programme, which was not anticipated at the time of the allocation of the £60m contract.
We told in April how hundreds of Pursuit staff were left in the dark over the future of their jobs as the firm lost out on the lucrative new contract at the eleventh hour.
Sources said many workers didn’t know where they should be turning up for work the next day after NSS handed the two-year agreement to Scots firms Ascensos and Go-Centric.
Pursuit said they had arranged the transfer of operations and staff under a “tight timescale” while workers described it as a “shambles”.
Bosses have embarked on an urgent recruitment drive to meet the needs of the new contract but former staff who moved to new companies earlier in the year are not allowed to return.
Martin Morrison, NHS National Services Scotland Operations Director for Test and Protect, said: “Following our open and transparent competitive procurement process, Pursuit will be the third contractor supporting the National Contact Centre (NCC) as part of Scotland’s Test and Protect and vaccination programmes.
“The three contracts are in addition to staff directly employed by NHS National Services Scotland, bank staff and colleagues in other NHS Boards
“The contract with Pursuit has a value of £4m and runs to March 2022.
“Pursuit will provide additional staff to help the NCC support the Covid vaccine booster programme, which was not known in February 2021 when the original two contracts were awarded.
“As this contract will increase the number of staff supporting this programme, it would be counter-productive for staff to move from existing suppliers to Pursuit.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This contract is for additional staff to answer calls about the vaccine booster programme.
“Currently, more than 70% of the Contact Tracing workforce is made up of NHS personnel.
“Our NHS contact tracers are supported by surge capacity within the National Contact Centre, where the additional staff will be working.
“This agile use of extra resource enables us to deliver a complex and critical service, at a rapid pace, amid a global pandemic which has put unprecedented strain on our NHS.”
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