Half of England’s integrated care boards are being sued by a waste management firm over the procurement of healthcare waste collection and disposal services for primary care, writes HSJ.
The 22 ICBs named in the legal challenge span six of the seven NHS regions. There is a further defendant – consultancy EcoVate – which was engaged to run the procurement on behalf of the ICBs.
The procurement in question was to secure waste services for primary care settings for five years from April 2025, with an estimated total value of £168m across all lots. The action means the procurement is paused, and the defendants have to file a defence within 28 days.
Waste management firm Stericycle UK, a subsidiary of the US-based Stericycle group, has brought a claim in the High Court asserting that the ICBs and EcoVate breached 10 regulations in the way they designed and carried out the procurement.
These include the requirement to treat different companies bidding for the contract equally and without discrimination, and acting transparently and proportionately.
It also said the 23 defendants made “manifest errors in their assessments and decisions in the procurement, including in the evaluation of tenders and in the award decisions”.
The ICBs and EcoVate have yet to file their defence papers.
Stericycle is the incumbent supplier to 19 of the 22 ICBs included in the legal challenge. It provides waste management services to primary care and secondary settings across the country.
Nine ICBs chose a different provider
The procurement being challenged in the latest claim was launched in September 2024. It was divided into 24 lots, each one for a different ICB. Stericycle submitted a bid for 23 of them.
As of 23 December 2024, when Stericycle submitted its court papers, a decision had been reached on 10 of the lots. Contracts were awarded for nine of them, five to the provider Sharpsmart, and four to PHS.
No contract was awarded for one of the lots, covering South East London ICB, because “no compliant bids were deemed to have been received” according to Stericycle’s filing. This no-award decision is why the company has only brought a claim against 22 of the ICBs, not 23.
The first contract award decision was made on 19 December 2024. Stericycle said it has “been forced to issue this claim” despite 13 ICBs not yet announcing decisions, because of the time limit on claims. The firm can only lodge a challenge within 30 days of the first announcement of a contract award.
Stericycle said that despite this, “it is reasonably assumed that given the commonality between considerable parts of the tender responses, the breaches and/or errors committed in relation to the award decisions have been and/or will be repeated in relation to those future contract awards”.
Two of the ICBs and EcoVate have declined to comment on live legal proceedings. HSJ approached the other 20 NHS bodies and Stericycle for comment but has yet to receive a response.
Date: 9 January