Serco dumps controversial out-of-hours care contract

Ailing Government contractor Serco has taken a £17 million hit in its healthcare business, dumping an out-of-hours GP services deal that was condemned by MPs.

The embattled outsourcer said it was terminating early the GP contract in Cornwall and the management of Braintree Hospital in Essex. It also announced a £9 million loss on a community care deal in Suffolk.

Earlier this year, Barking MP and Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge led an inquiry into the Cornwall contract and said Serco was “inhibiting staff from revealing the real facts about the out-of-hours service to patients”.

Serco was found to have “fiddled the figures” on 252 occasions in the first half of 2012, such as claiming that 100% of emergency callers received face-to-face appointments within 60 minutes when only 75% did so.

Yesterday, Serco — along with rival G4S — was stripped of contracts to electronically tag criminals in the UK. In July, Serco was found to have charged the taxpayer for tagging people who were either in jail or dead.