THE Conservatives have attacked plans disclosed in The Times to give a single company a contract for a large part of NHS purchasing.

In a letter to Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, Stephen O’Brien, the Tory health spokesman, asks why its scale was not disclosed to Parliament.

He said that MPs had been told that the purchasing to be privatised would amount to £700 million, and claimed that this rose to £4 billion as ministers decided to include not only the NHS Logistics Authority, as originally intended, but also large parts of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency.

DHL-Novation, an American-German partnership, is the front runner to win the contract, which is said by the department to be worth £3.7 million, but is estimated at £4.2 million by others who have studied it. Mr O’Brien says that the contract will lead DHL-Novation to dominate the market.

“Most of the UK medical equipment industry will be at the mercy of a foreign organisation,” he said. “Experience in the US suggests that this is disastrous for smaller start-up companies that are frozen out of the market.”

He added that there had been no indication of the ground rules under which Novation would operate. “Value for money is a laudable goal but needs to be balanced if the supply market is to function to produce best value in the long term,” he wrote in the letter.

“It seems extraordinary that your department should have taken no steps to protect suppliers and hospitals from the problems that can arise from a monopoly such as this.”

Mr O’Brien called for a statement by Ms Hewitt to the House of Commons, so that MPs could question ministers. “Where’s the accountability?” he asked.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “Jane Kennedy [the junior health minister] made clear to Parliament that three options were under consideration, one of which was the inclusion of parts of NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency.

“Unions and staff representatives have been closely consulted on this approach at every stage.”

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