Stroud firm denies knowledge of 'VIP lane' for NHS contracts

Two batches of the visors, totalling nearly 3.5 million, have entered the NHS supply chain

A firm awarded a £120m NHS contract to supply visors in the pandemic has denied knowledge of any preferential treatment in respect of its bid.

Platform-14 Medical Devices' owner Steve Dachan, an ex-Tory councillor in Stroud, said his firm had delivered NHS equipment for about 10 years.

Transparency campaign group The Good Law Project said it had documentation suggesting the firm was put in a "VIP lane" for contracts without knowing.

The firm denied any special status.

When asked whether the firm had contacted MPs, ministers or political contacts seeking preferential treatment the firm said "absolutely not and none at all."

The company claimed it was "being used as a political tool to unpick how the government behaved in an unprecedented political crisis".

It said the criticism of the company and how the contract was awarded was "unfounded and the government have published the contracts which we applied for.

"The product we supplied met all the required criteria and we delivered on time and on budget."

To date about 3.5 million of the company's visors have entered the NHS supply chain.

The Department for Health and Social Care said proper due diligence was carried out for all government contracts awarded and it took those checks extremely seriously.

"We have worked tirelessly to source life-saving PPE to protect health and care staff, and we have delivered more than 12.7 billion items to the frontline at record speed.

Chief executive Ben Fear said the firm had "immense pride in what we were able to do in a very short period of time"

"As the National Audit Office has recognised, all NHS providers they spoke to were able to get the equipment they needed in time", it added.

In responding to the coronavirus crisis, the government did not use the tendering process under which contracts are usually handed out.

On a number of occasions it used an emergency procedure, by which contracts were handed directly to companies without competition.

The Good Law Project, which is campaigning for transparency from the government over PPE contracts awarded in the pandemic, supplied documents to the BBC that suggest Platform-14 Medical were placed in the so-called VIP Lane by the Department for Business, Education Innovation and Skills (BEIS) .

The document from an internal government audit agency report states: "Their application was introduced by a senior official at BEIS and was processed through the VIP channel under the name of the principal contact."

The Good Law project stressed it had no evidence of wrongdoing by Platform-14 Medical Devices and no evidence the firm would have known it was on any "fast-track" list.

Platform-14 Medical said: "Categorically we did not apply for any VIP or fast-track process in any way shape or form.

"The contracts we filled out were contracts that came out to everybody."

Ben Fear, chief executive of Platform-14 Medical Devices, added the company had "immense pride in what we were able to do in a very short period of time.

"To have played a role in helping to keep them safe, we would absolutely do it again".