Following today’s announcement that Carillion plc would be declaring insolvency, the NHS put into place contingency plans that have seen services for patients maintained without interruption.

These contigency plans, held at a national level by NHS England and NHS Improvement and locally by individual trusts and private sector partners, have been in preparation for some months.

The NHS is a relatively small customer of Carillion plc, with 14 trusts receiving services from Carillion:

• For 13 trusts, Carillion plc is subcontracted by a PFI provider to operate some hard (such as building maintenance) or soft (such as catering, cleaning or portering) facilities management services
• Three trusts also directly contract Carillion to provide some services (two receive hard facilities management services, one receives soft facilities management services and one receives car parking management)
• There are also a number of smaller primary and community care properties with services provided by Carillion, these again are subcontracted services through others. These are being managed and supported by Community Health Partnerships
• There are two sites under construction

We have had staff deployed to the six biggest hospital sites to offer assistance, but the vast majority of Carillion staff have turned up to work as normal.

All NHS sites remain open and operating as planned.

While the NHS isn’t a particularly large customer of Carillion plc, we have a duty to maintain safe, high quality services for our patients. That’s why we’ve been working with trusts and with private sector providers to have extensive contingency plans in place.

That these plans have worked well is a tribute to the tireless work by NHS staff and by staff employed by Carillion, who have put huge amounts of effort in at what is a very difficult time for them.

NHS Improvement spokesperson