Gina Coladangelo’s brother is the director of a health company that has secured multi-million pound contracts from the NHS, it has emerged.
Roberto Coladangelo’s firm was awarded a £28million contract last year to carry out work for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who is accused of having an affair with Miss Coladangelo, has been embroiled in a series of conflict of interest scandals.
For example, in November last year it emerged the former landlord his local pub won a contract to supply tens of millions of COVID tests to the NHS.
Mr Coladangelo, 42, is an executive director at Partnering Health Ltd, a Hampshire-based outsourcing firm helping to run NHS 111, the non-emergency line.
The £28million contract was for work including running a clinical assessment service and providing home visits in West Hampshire.
A spokesperson for PHL told Sky News: ‘PHL has been operating for over 11 years and at all times has secured contracts through the robust tender and procurement processes put in place by local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
‘At no time have any contracts been awarded outside of these rigorous processes and no contracts have ever been awarded by the Department of Health and Social Care.’
The healthcare firm’s website describes itself as ‘an independent healthcare company providing services and quality solutions to the NHS and private healthcare partners’.
Ms Coladangelo’s family has other links to the healthcare sector. Her Italian father Rino is chief executive of a specialist pharmaceutical consultancy.
The news comes as the Health Secretary, 42, today failed to deny claims of a secret long-term affair after images revealed his passionate clinch with millionaire lobbyist Ms Coladangelo, 43, where he was filmed rubbing her back and bottom during their workplace embrace.
Mr Hancock is currently facing a sleaze probe after failing fully to declare shares in a firm that has won contracts from the NHS.
The Health Secretary declared in March that he had acquired 15% of the shares in Topwood Ltd, which specialises in the secure storage, shredding and scanning of documents.
However, the entry on the MPs’ register of interests did not mention that his sister Emily Gilruth also has shares and is a director of the firm, or that it has connections to the health service.
In February, the High Court ruled that Mr Hancock failed to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of coronavirus-related contracts.
The Good Law Project took legal action against the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for its ‘wholesale failure’ to disclose details of contracts agreed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Government is required by law to publish a ‘contract award notice’ within 30 days of the award of any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.
Source: Mario Ledwith – MailOnline
UPDATE:
UK health minister resigns after breaking pandemic restrictions during affair with aide
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock resigns after he admitted to breaking pandemic restrictions during a newly-revealed affair with a close aide.
Last week, Hancock rejected criticism of his handling of the pandemic after private WhatsApp exchanges emerged, in which British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared to describe him as “hopeless.”
Hancock has also previously faced allegations that he lied to Johnson and awarded a contract to an unqualified friend.
He has faced further questions about his ownership of shares in a family company that won a COVID-related contract from his ministry last year.
Source: AP via TOI