Virgin Care revenues jump 50% thanks to NHS outsourcing contracts

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Care saw a 50 per cent rise in revenues to £200m in its latest financial year, helped by a series of new NHS outsourcing contracts.

The company made an £8m profit in the year to the end of March 2017 but paid no corporation tax, its latest accounts show. That was because the company is part of the larger Virgin Care group, the parent company of which declared a loss of £19.3m.

The web of companies is ultimately owned by a company registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands, where Sir Richard is domiciled.

Virgin Care Services began work on three large new NHS contracts in 2017: A £64m, five-year contract in Wiltshire, another seven-year deal in East Staffordshire worth £270m and a £126m, seven-year contract with Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS Swale Clinical Commissioning Group.

The company’s rapid growth comes as Theresa May finds her Government under renewed pressure over increasing privatisation of NHS services.

In Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Jeremy Corbyn accused the Government of allowing NHS funds to be “siphoned off into the private sector”.