A joint venture in pathology services between two London trusts and the private sector company Serco has yet to turn a profit, and its management has admitted that it had underestimated the task and was now trying to recover from a poor start.

GSTS Pathology was set up as a partnership between Serco and Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust in 2009 after a review of pathology services carried out in 2006 by the Labour peer Patrick Carter had recommended that savings could be made if pathology services were delivered by specialised service providers.1 King’s College Hospital joined in 2010. In 2011 the joint venture lost £5.9m (€7.4m; $9.5m) on a turnover of £85m.

A …