£billions written off – Oxford scientists expose staggering NHS losses | UK | News
Billions of pounds wasted in NHS black hole (Image: Getty)
More than £15bn of taxpayers’ money has been wiped out since Covid, with billions more left unaccounted for, as Oxford scientists warn there is a financial black hole within Britain’s public health system.
This includes billions of pounds spent on tests, drugs and vaccines that are never used, are either thrown away or have expired. It also includes a spiraling multibillion-pound bill for a new biosecurity building that is almost five years behind schedule and is expected to cost £3.2bn, more than six times the original price.
The research, by Oxford University experts Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson, focuses on the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and concludes that the true extent of losses, stock failures and overspending has never been fully disclosed or understood by the public.
Researchers, who brought together official accounts, audit reports and parliamentary findings since 2020, say the figures show a pattern of massive emergency spending, followed by weak controls, incomplete records and massive losses.
These show that tens of billions of dollars have been processed during the Covid outbreak, of which more than £15bn has already had to be written off, with other billions still under questioning. This is more than the annual budget of many government departments, is enough to build more than one large hospital, or could fund large numbers of operations, staff and front-line services.
discarded masks – Covid (Image: Getty)
Read more: UK watchdog fumes over ‘unacceptable’ £15bn waste of unused Covid PPE
Read more: Labour’s £3bn plan to ‘hammer away’ science laboratories from villages in England…
They show that the biggest losses were caused by pandemic supplies.
Nearly £15 billion worth of PPE, medicines, tests and vaccines were written off after being purchased in large quantities during the crisis but never used, later judged to be unnecessary or allowed to expire in storage, according to government accounts. Since then most of the stock has been destroyed, sold at a loss or stored at higher cost.
The real money lost is enough to cover the wages of tens of thousands of NHS nurses for years.
Moreover, auditors found that £3.3bn of stock transferred from NHS Test and Trace to the UK Health Security Agency could not be properly tracked due to incomplete records and incomplete inventory. MPs described the situation as “completely shocking” accounting failures.
In one example, around £1.7bn of emergency preparedness spending was written off between 2023 and 2024; This includes £1bn worth of Covid vaccines which expired without being used after being ordered in large quantities to prevent shortages.
Critics say the figures show how decisions made during the crisis continue to hurt taxpayers years later.
Prof Heneghan and Dr Jefferson argue that once programs reach this size, they become almost impossible to stop, even if the problems become obvious.
Expenses for new biosafety laboratory already exceeded (Image: Getty)
They also point to the rising cost of the government’s new biosecurity science center in Harlow, Essex, one of the flagship projects linked to the UKHSA.
The facility was initially expected to cost around £530 million, but latest estimates show the bill has risen to around £3.2 billion and is scheduled for completion in the 2030s.
Nearly £400 million has already been spent but no buildings have been completed yet.
Scientists say the project shows how public spending can spiral when costs become too large to be canceled politically, even as they rise.
The Taxpayers Alliance has warned that the agency’s finances point to wider problems across government, describing the situation as an example of “fiscal and institutional dysfunction” with poor oversight of major budgets.
Scientists warn that financial responsibility is becoming blurred as organizations are reshuffled, ministers change and senior officials leave before projects are completed.
The UK Health Security Agency itself has already experienced several leadership changes since it was established during the pandemic, making it difficult to determine who is responsible for past decisions.
“This analysis shows that UK taxpayers are funding a public healthcare system prone to overspending, poor scrutiny and projects growing well beyond their original plans. Unless financial controls improve, the UK will repeat the cycle – billions of dollars will be invested in the name of security and the real cost will be revealed years later, long after the money has disappeared.”
Professor Heneghan and Dr Jefferson said: “While funding is consistently available for large, high-profile projects, it mysteriously dries up when it comes to the fundamentals of healthcare. In our view, this reflects systemic financial mismanagement rather than a series of isolated failures.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “This government is ensuring that the mistakes of the past are not repeated and is doing everything it can to put taxpayers’ money back where it belongs: in communities, the NHS, the police and the armed forces.
“Action to recover public money lost to Covid fraud has so far resulted in almost £400 million being returned to the public coffers, with PPE suppliers referred to the National Crime Agency for investigation.
“The new Pandemic Preparedness Strategy outlines concrete actions already taken across government to embed the lessons learned from Covid-19.”
