Firm owned by Tory Donor Frank Hester lands another £4.4m NHS contract
The Phoenix Partnership have been awarded a new contract with the NHS to provide a "Child Health Information IT System" - Its owner Frank Hester has donated £15 million to the Conservative Party.
On 18 March 2024, in the wake of Frank Hester’s vile remarks about Labour MP Diane Abbott the NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard condemned the “racist, sexist and violent” remarks made by The Phoenix Partnership boss and record breaking Tory donor.
Pritchard said in her weekly “healthcare leaders update” she understood the “shock and disgust” that many NHS staff had experienced after Hester’s comments were revealed in the explosive Guardian investigation.
However, remarkably on the following day (19 March 2024) the NHS awarded a new contract to the Phoenix Partnership limited. A 5-year, £4.4million contract for the provision of a “Child Health Information IT System” In the East Midlands.
Details of the award were first published by the government on 23 April 2024, but, the contract was not published alongside the award notice, therefore details of the work being undertaken by Frank Hester’s firm are limited.
Here’s what the contract award notice said:
The NHS contracts are very lucrative for The Phoenix Partnership. An investigation by Good Law Project previously revealed the firm had been paid at least “£137m in hidden payments apparently for digitising NHS records”. Payments to Hester’s firm from the government continue to run at over £3.5million per month.
Hester and his company have made eye-watering profits in recent years, predominantly driven by government contracts. In accounts published on Companies House the firm reported a £90million operating profit in 2022 and 2023. Phoenix Partnership also paid out £23million in dividends during the same period.
According to the Guardian, during a 2019 meeting Frank Hester said “he did not hate all black women. But he said that seeing Diane Abbott, who is Britain’s longest-serving black MP, on TV meant “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there”.
Hester and his company have given the Tories £10million in donations in the past year, and media reports suggest Rishi Sunak’s party are sitting on a further £5million donation from the same donor.
More to follow…