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Drug firms 'colluded' to overcharge NHS by up to 1,800%

Oscar Williams-Grut
Senior City Correspondent, Yahoo Finance UK
  • V
    V for Vendetta
    People are surprised? Anyone involved in NHS purchasing could tell stories about being asked to buy desks when there are brand new desks already in stores, being asked to buy uniforms because the uniforms currently used are not the chosen colour of the new Chief executive. I am sure purchasing officers involved in drug purchases could tell the taxpayer how they are hamstrung by contracts that ensure even though say Aspirin can be purchased for pennies the NHS has to pay £1 a tablet. In fact I am sure anyone in NHS purchasing would tell the taxpayer how they are being ripped off by contracts designed to benefit the supplier - they can't because of course they have all signed the Official Secrets Act to ensure their silence!
  • W
    And the NHS had no idea it was being fleeced, did it? What do you expect when you buy something from SA?
  • C
    I am willing to bet that if you dig deep enough you will find some suspect family or friend connections between some NHS Chiefs and some CEO's of the companies selling the drugs.
  • M
    Corporate pickpockets, time these companies senior management were held personally accountable and be subject to serious penalties for their crimes.
  • G
    The NHS is being screwed by every private contractor employed by them. I'm positive that back handers are happening across the board from managers to store persons. The waste of supplies is enormous. My wife has cancer and had unopened medical equipment she never used, I asked could I return it thinking it can be used by someone else? No was the answer because it had been assigned to that patient!! What does this say of waste if this happens on just on instance?? Someone central must take stock of the situation and stop the NHS hemorrhaging money which is so desperately needed.
  • S
    Just wait till Brexit is sorted, suppliers are stockpiling medicines in case of a shortage, the only shortage there'll be is if the NHS can't afford to pay the vastly inflated prices that the suppliers will then be charging, and blaming Brexit.
  • R
    The problem is, the civil servants who's job it is to check and monitor public spending are just as crooked as the companies that the government uses. Anyone remember a few years back when one of the buildings in Westminster was being serviced, one of the tabloid papers was given copies of purchases orders that was being submitted to the government by the service company that had the contract to service buildings in Westminster, that this company was charging sometimes upto 400% the cost of everyday replaceable items that can be found in your high street DIY store and the thing is, the civil servants were allowing the company to get away with it. Like i said, crooked civil servants allow these crooked companies to flourish in taking advantage of public services like the NHS.
  • C
    So why didn't the buying department realize something was wrong when this drug was only available from Aspen, WHY did they not check with other manufactures to identify the collusion between them or were the buyers getting a backhander to keep quiet ???
  • E
    life sentences in order
  • D
    Tip of the iceberg! all being done by the kind of people who want to privatise healthcare in the UK.