Virgin Care asked staff in the Bath area not to report their safety concerns to the health watchdog.

Registered managers in health and social care have a legal obligation to report issues to the Care Quality Commission if they feel their service is unsafe.

But Virgin Care asked its managers in Bath and North East Somerset to “hold off” from contacting the CQC as they struggled with IT issues affecting community health and social care services.

Patients had appointments cancelled, letters and reports were not sent out, and nurses had problems updating patient records during Virgin Care’s first three months in charge of community care in B&NES.

Virgin Care said it had "shared comprehensive details with the CQC and they have not raised any concerns".

The private company said it had IT issues under control in its first report to the council in July.

But two weeks earlier, a senior manager had emailed service managers asking them to help “manage the situation” by not reporting their concerns to the CQC.

She assured them this was not an attempt to prevent “whistle blowing” but rather to avoid any duplication by letting the company handle communication with the watchdog.

Julie Thallon, Virgin Care’s interim managing director for Bath and North East Somerset, wrote: “I understand that ‘a number’ of people may have contacted the CQC about their concerns.

"I entirely understand but need your help with managing the situation please to ensure we provide a consistent and comprehensive report to them.

“As such, at the moment I would ask that we hold off from submitting statutory notifications.”

“I am calling our local Compliance/Relationship Manager from CQC and will be updating her on our current situation and where we’re at with resolving it,” Ms Thallon continued in her email sent July 5.

“We will ask for her advice about the need to submit the formal notification and will act accordingly – we will do that as an organisation rather than from separate services as many of the issues are affecting colleagues across a number of services so we would be duplicating it if we send them in separately.

“In the meantime if you are approached by anyone with a view to contacting the CQC directly please can you advise them of the actions we are taking as this may provide some reassurance for them.”

Instead of reassurance, however, the email filled some managers with horror.

One staff member said there was widespread distrust about what Virgin Care would tell the CQC based on their experience with the private company since it took over in April.

The employee, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “We don’t know what information they’re sharing because they don’t communicate with us.”

Repeated emails to share their concerns with senior management and find out what was being done had been met with silence, the staff member reported.

“They’re wearing people out to the extent that they’re not reporting their concerns any more because they don’t get a response,” the employee said.

“At the same time we’re having to provide a service. It’s exhausting and demoralising.”

The staff member said some community health and social care services in B&NES were still dogged by IT issues.

Virgin Care claimed it had largely resolved all of its IT issues and it was “business as usual” on July 19 when it presented its 100 Day Report to the council’s Health and Wellbeing Select Committee.

“I can assure you it’s not business as usual,” said the staff member, who used to do the same job as an employee of Sirona.

“Service users aren’t suffering but that’s only because of the professionals working within the organisation.

“That’s the really frustrating bit.

“The people at the front line are doing a good job, not Virgin.”

The Bath Chronicle sent eight questions to Virgin Care, addressing its handling of CQC notifications, its report to the CQC, and what IT issues its services in B&NES are still experiencing.

In answer to all eight questions, it sent the following statement: “As was widely reported earlier in the year, there was no interruption to services for patients and, as soon as issues arose, we quickly implemented contingency plans which ensured services continued to operate safely.

“Colleagues were supported to deliver care while our local and senior teams met regularly to monitor progress and brief our commissioners and the CQC on the issues and what was being done to resolve them; we have shared comprehensive details with the CQC and they have not raised any concerns.”

Virgin took over community health and social care services in B&NES after it won a £700 million contract from Bath and North East Somerset Council and the B&NES Clinical Commissioning Group.

The seven-year contract is thought to be the financially-largest deal the company has ever won from a single authority.

It also marks the first time a council’s core adult social work services is delivered by a for-profit private firm.