Outsourcing firm Serco has announced its profits are set to soar after being paid to operate NHS Test and Trace.
The company announced that extra cash could be funnelled to shareholders in the week the performance of the part-privatised contact tracing system hit a new low.
Campaigners have labelled the profit alert “obscene” while a group of independent scientists have called for the contact tracing system to be “dismantled”.
In an unplanned update to the London Stock Exchange, Serco said it had achieved strong revenue growth in the three months from July, highlighting extensions to contracts to provide test sites and call handlers.
Bosses said this was “an indication of our customer’s satisfaction with the quality of work we have delivered” as part of the £12 billion NHS Test and Trace.
Serco expects a trading profit of £160 million to £165 million, compared with previous estimates of £135 million to £150 million.
Full-year revenue is expected to be around £3.9 billion, up from the £3.7 billion predicted.
Serco was handed £108 million of taxpayers cash to set up contract tracing call centres which have been beset by problems.
Its contract was then extended in August which could see them handed up to £410 million extra.
But doctors have called the system Serco has set up a "shambles" and it has heavily under-performed rival versions set up in places like Wales that simply use the NHS to run test and trace.
Dr Rinesh Parmar, the chair of the Doctor's Association UK, said last month: “The current arrangements for Covid-19 testing are an utter shambles. We have key workers, such as GPs and hospital doctors, who are unable to access testing, having to self-isolate and ultimately not see patients.
“With an already stretched NHS workforce and 8,274 doctor vacancies in England alone prior to the pandemic, we can ill afford to have doctors self-isolating due to a lack of available testing.”
Pascale Robinson, officer at campaign group We Own It, said: “The fact that Serco is celebrating increased profits and making plans to pay out dividends to shareholders shows everything that’s wrong with the Government’s handling of this pandemic.
“At a time when people are losing their jobs and facing huge uncertainty about their health and their future, it is absolutely obscene to see Serco set to pay out yet more public money to its shareholders.
“Serco has already received millions of public money to handle the test, track and trace system - and it’s been a disaster.
"We don’t have a functioning system, and we don’t have a handle on the virus.
“Serco shouldn’t get a penny more of public money. It’s time to kick them out of the test, track and trace system, and put local public health teams in charge. They’re the people who are already delivering the response we need to this pandemic, and they’re the people who will get us out of lockdown safely.”
Figures released this week suggest NHS Test and Trace has been overwhelmed as infection rates rise.
Calls are going for private firms to be stripped out and funding diverted to local public health teams, similar to the strategy in countries such as Germany.
Just 62.6% of close contacts were reached in the week up to October 7 - the lowest weekly percentage since Test and Trace began and is down from 69.5% the previous week.
Once you factor in those who originally tested positive who either could not be reached, or declined to hand over details, the total percentage of contacts reached is well below half.
Sage had advised it needed to successfully trace 80% of contacts.
For cases handled by local health protection teams, 97.7% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate.
The teams, run by local councils, have only received a tiny fraction of the billions in Government funding for the system handed to a network of outsourcing firms.
The group Independent Sage is demanding an immediate circuit break so that NHS Test and Trace can be “dismantled” and reformed.
Scientists say control of contact tracing system should be stripped from outsourcing firms and handed to regional Directors of Public Health.
Prof Christina Pagel of University College London said: “Cases, hospitalisations and deaths are rising across England.
“This will buy us precious time to build a public health and social scaffolding to support easing restrictions and restarting our lives. We must not waste this time.”
Around 1.5 million people were tested and 90,000 tested positive in the week up to October 7. Numbers tested went up 12% compared to the previous week, while numbers testing positive increased by 64%.
Asked what Boris Johnson thought of Serco’s profit surge, the PM’s official spokesman said: “I wouldn’t expect to comment on the profits or otherwise of commercial companies.”
Asked why the government didn't have penalty clauses he added: "All the contracts we have are commercially sensitive and it's not practice to discuss them."
A Serco spokesman said: “The part we play in Test and Trace, although important, is limited and specific.
“We believe that our operational delivery has been outstanding, and that we have delivered our obligations to the customer to their satisfaction, evidenced by the fact that they have extended our contracts for both test sites and tracing call capacity.”