A health watchdog is calling for tougher scrutiny of a £70 million community care contract in Bath and North East Somerset, after receiving 'worrying reports' of staff shortages having knock-on effects on patients.

Protect Our NHS coordinator Pam Richards said it was "deplorable" it had taken three years to get information and reassurances from Virgin Care.

The company is responsible for 200 community services and she asked for reassurance about staffing levels and its ability to make the savings needed.

Ms Richards said: "There should have been greater transparency and accountability from the start of this very large contract.

"I hope that a systematic and consistent method for monitoring Virgin's performance, quality of service and transformation programme will be introduced.

"However, I think it is deplorable that it has taken nearly three years and considerable pressure from our group to get to where we are.

"The Virgin Care contract for community health and social care services is worth £70 million per annum, which is a considerable amount of public money.

"It is incumbent on the council and the clinical commissioning group to monitor whether that money is delivering what was promised by way of quality services, new ways of working and efficiency savings.

"We have pushed hard on this as we received worrying reports about many aspects of the service including staff shortages and low morale with the knock-on effects for service users and patients, failure to deliver their transformation targets such as the integrated care record and a failure to deliver efficiency savings."

Virgin Care took on the community health and care services contract on April 1, 2017.

A report to councillors in October said it was performing well and had made significant improvements in a number of areas.

And councillor Rob Appleyard said Bath and North East Somerset Council had robust measures in place to monitor all its contracts.

But Ms Richards said a health scrutiny panel had not seen a detailed summary showing staff turnover, vacancy rates, agency staffing and numbers of complaints since 2018.

She also questioned how it was performing financially.

Kirsty Matthews, the managing director for Virgin Care in Bath and North East Somerset, said its performance was 'on track'.

She said: "Our partnership with the council and local NHS is about delivering a responsive, easy to use community service which meets the increasing demand and helps people not just to get well, but to stay well – and we're on track, delivering high quality services and performing well.

"Our performance is reported monthly to the council and the NHS and compares favourably against local and national benchmarks.

"Bringing about significant change takes time and considerable effort.

"But working together with our dedicated colleagues, adapting our plans based on their expertise and through listening to the people who use these services, I am proud of what we've achieved.

"Our citizens' panel has an open invitation to any local person who would like to get involved in delivering these essential changes."

A spokesman for Virgin Care said it welcomes scrutiny of these "essential taxpayer-funded services".

He said the company meets or exceeds all of its contractual requirements to report on the performance of the service and has a citizens' panel, where residents can hear updates.

Mr Appleyard, cabinet member for adult services, said: "A full report on the Virgin Care contract is due in March, following on from the comprehensive report in October last year.

"We are aware there is focus on outdated information and the report in March will be an opportunity for interested parties to understand the progress made.

"We have robust measures in place to ensure the performance levels of our contracts with all our partners, including Virgin Care, are carefully monitored on a day-to-day basis."