Council to reassess bids to run children's health services

Last November, Lancashire County Council appointed Virgin to run public health services for 0- to 19-year-olds under a five-year contract worth £104m.

The contract covers the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme, health visiting and school nurse services.

The Virgin bid was preferred to a rival one from Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, which currently deliver public health services for the council.

However, in June, the High Court backed a legal challenge against the decision by the health trusts, who argued the correct procurement process had not been followed.

The court found that the council's own records of its moderation process fell short of the standards required to demonstrate how it scored the bidders.

The council has now announced that it will re-evaluate the joint health trust bid and that of Virgin, with the scoring and moderation stages re-run with a new independent panel, which will make the decision over awarding the contract.

The existing contract runs until March 2019.

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Following the High Court ruling, the council has agreed to pay part of the health trusts' costs for bringing the legal challenge, thought to be in the region of £200,000.

Shaun Turner, Lancashire Council cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said: "We will now be able to move forward to finalise this procurement process and we have also agreed to pay 75 per cent of the trusts' legal costs for this case, which will mean we do not have to go back to court.

"Where services such as the 0-19 public health services are not being delivered in-house, we are under a legal duty to open them up to competition; and the decision to do so in this case was in no way political.

"Health visitors and school nurses all do a fantastic job and we will continue to support them in any way we can to ensure children and families continue to receive a good service."

In January, the Unite union called on the council to rethink the decision to award the contract to Virgin in light of the collapse of Carillion, the building and contracting firm that had a number of NHS and council contracts.

Unite warned that handing the contract to a "profit-motivated" company could lead to job losses.