Maximus, the company which took over work capability assessments (WCAs) from Atos is currently losing millions of pounds on the contract, Disability News Service has reported. The announcement led to Maximus’ shares dropping 26% in value.{jcomments on}
Maximus had expected to earn over £140 million in the first year of its WCA contract, amounting to a profit of over $30 million. Instead it earned just $105 million, meaning that the company actually lost $4 million on the deal. This is in spite of Maximus being paid around double the amount that Atos received for administering the same contract.
Maximus say the cause of the problem is the difficulty they are experiencing recruiting enough health professionals. Bruce Caswell, president of Maximus, said there was a “very tight labour market in the United Kingdom and individuals have a lot of options, whether it’s to go to work for the National Health Service, whether it’s to practice in a general practice mode, a GP-type environment, or whether it’s to do additional work on other assessment-related contracts”.
You can read the full story on the Disability News Service website
