VIRGIN Care has come under pressure to “return the NHS’s money” after it emerged the private healthcare provider sued NHS England, Surrey County Council and six clinical commissioning groups (CCG) for an estimated £2 million last year.

As reported by the Herald last week, Virgin Care sued the county council and NHS bodies, including the North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG, in November 2016 citing "serious flaws" in the way the procurement of a contract to provide children’s and young people’s community health care services was conducted.

Virgin Care, which runs community services at Farnham Hospital, lost out on the £82 million contract to Surrey Health Children and Families Services, an alliance of the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and two social enterprises.

More than 100,000 people have since signed an online petition demanding Virgin Care and Richard Branson “return the NHS’s money” following the controversial payout.

The petition, launched by Steve Preddy, states: “When the NHS is under severe financial pressure, it cannot afford to lose this money.

“Richard Branson, however, with an estimated personal wealth of over £3.5 billion, can manager perfectly comfortably without it.

“This petition asks Virgin Care to return the money to the National Health Service, and asks Richard Branson to apologise and make up a personal commitment Virgin Care will never again sue the NHS after losing out on a contract.”

Lib Dem county councillors at Surrey have also called for a scrutiny investigation following the controversial payout which, although unconfirmed, is believed to amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds for each of the affected organisations.

Hazel Watson, leader of the Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council, said: “It appears likely that the county council have paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds to Virgin Care.

“But Surrey residents will never know how much public money was used to settle this case.

“This is money that could have been used to fund vital public services, which are already being cut by the Conservative-administration at County Hall, rather than settle expensive legal disputes.

"I am therefore calling for a scrutiny investigation into what the grounds for the dispute were, how the county council interacted with the CCGs with regard to the procurement and what went wrong, and for more transparency on the amount of public money that the county council has spent with regard to this case.”

Surrey County Council and Virgin Care both declined to comment.