Tory health minister hasn't sold stake in Covid testing firm a year after pledge
A Tory health minister still owns a major stake in a private health screening firm making money from the crisis in the NHS a year after promising to sell it, the Mirror can reveal.
Lord Markham annouced last January that he was “undertaking to sell my stake” in Cignpost, a private Covid testing firm which made a fortune from the pandemic. But Company House records for Cignpost Investments Limited still show Markham owning between 25% and 50% of the business.
Labour is demanding an explanation from the millionaire politician, while the Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment. A Labour spokesman said: "Not only have the Conservatives run down our NHS and left it in the biggest crisis in its history, the Health Minister is profiting from its demise. Why should people trust the Tories with the NHS, when it is in their financial interests for the health service to fail? Lord Markham needs to explain why he has not sold his stake in Cignpost, one year after telling Parliament that he would.”
Cignpost has filed accounts showing that revenue soared by 467% to £278m in 2022, thanks to booming business helping firms comply with covid rules. The company has £52m cash in the bank and shareholder funds are up 150% from last year. Cignpost also offers mobile health screening, including heart health assessments and skin screening, which can be done in “your board room, staff car park or a third-party venue”.
Mirror analysis of the waiting times at scores of NHS trusts at the end of 2022 show that 43 out of 115 - or 32% - fail to meet the 18 week target for treatment for the majority of their cardiology patients. The average wait from GP referral to treatment is 16.3 weeks, according to the latest data. For dermatology treatment, the wait is even longer. Out of 83 trusts, 34 - or 41% - fail to meet the 18 week target for a majority of their patients and the average waiting time in 17.2 weeks.
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Lord Markham is a businessman who was given a peerage and made Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care by Liz Truss in September 2022. His biography on the Government website talks about his roles at firms like ITV, Laura Ashley and Top Up TV but fails to mention his healthcare investments.
Last January, after his ownership of Cignpost shares was first reported, he made a statement in the House of Lords: “Given the recent press, I want to start by setting out the position of Cignpost, the private sector Covid testing company in which, as many noble Lords will be aware, I own a stake.
“To be clear, Cignpost did not bid for any government PPE contracts and has only private sector clients. Nonetheless, upon taking up the role as an unpaid Minister of Health, I resigned my directorships, made an undertaking to sell my stake, and in conjunction with the Permanent Secretary, ensured that I was not engaged in any areas where there could be perceived to be a conflict. I just wanted to make that clear.”
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