Confederation and Locsu respond to Capita profit warning

Government outsourcer Capita has warned that profits for 2018 would be about a third lower than expected, prompting it to axe dividend payments to shareholders and raise £700m by issuing new shares.

Its shares plunged by nearly 50% (more than £1bn) following the profit warning. Capita's shares fell another 12.47% to 159.75p on February 1.

Following the warning, Optical Confederation and Locsu said the Government and NHS England ‘must prepare to step in’ if Capita continued to let down NHS primary care contractors.

Optical Confederation chair, Fiona Anderson said: ‘Our members have already been suffering for two years because of Capita’s failure to deliver a primary care support service in England. We wrote to Simon Stevens only last week to set out our members’ continuing anger and frustration at Capita’s failure to improve and our complete lack of confidence in Capita. We said then that unless things turn around immediately, the time has come for NHS England to find another service provider.