Rise in Mitie service failures at Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust

Mitie's contract is worth £90m over seven years for three hospitals in Truro, Penzance and Hayle

A private firm in charge of cleaning and catering at an NHS Trust has seen a fivefold rise in missed targets.

Mitie had more than a thousand service failures at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) in May, up from 200 in April.

The company lost nearly half its monthly profit (48.3%) in trust fines as a result.

Mitie said it was fully committed to working with the trust to make sure the contract was a success.

It took over the so-called "hotel services" at RCHT last October and since then it has consistently failed to meet required standards.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed there were 1,016 service faults in May, 31 of which were classified major and four were critical.

A spokesperson for the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust said: "We are continuing our robust monitoring of the Mitie contract.

"Mitie has responded to concerns raised and we are working together to ensure the delivery of a safe, high quality service for our patients."

The firm did not provide a specific explanation for the sharp rise in May, but in a statement it said: "When we took over these services they were in a pretty poor state.

"We have made real progress in improving standards across the board.

"We are pleased that recruitment levels have increased recently so performance will be less affected by the very high historic numbers of people on long-term sick leave. We have also made changes to the management of the contract that will improve performance."

Mitie came under fire over staff sickness in June after it emerged sick pay cost the company £1.2m in its first eight months, compared with £280,000 by the NHS in the previous financial year.