A senior civil servant should play no part in ministers’ crackdown on private ADHD and autism clinics because of her recent ties to the industry, MPs have said.
Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs are demanding that Samantha Jones, the Department of Health and Social Care’s permanent secretary, steps away from any role in plans to toughen regulation of the booming market in private neurodiversity assessments.
They say Jones should not be involved because of her links to a company that is one of biggest providers of NHS-funded neurodiversity assessments, which earned it £26m from the health service in England over the past six years.
Ministers are drawing up plans for how to better regulate the “wild west” of private clinics offering assessment, diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and autism that has grown rapidly in recent years as people have struggled to access care via the NHS.
The push comes after the government last week accepted the findings of a review by Prof Peter Fonagy, which raised concerns about the “consistency and quality” of assessments by private providers of neurodiversity services that had inbuilt “financial incentives” to diagnose and treat people.
Jones is responsible for overseeing the implementation of government decisions on health policy. She would therefore be expected to advise ministers on how best to strengthen the regulation of private providers of ADHD and autism services. Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, has pledged to introduce a much tougher regime.
Four MPs have called for Jones to recuse herself from any role in those decisions because of her previous ties to ADHD360, a major provider of neurodiversity services. Her links to the private ADHD sector represent a serious conflict of interest, they claim.
Jones was appointed as the permanent secretary on 22 April 2025. A month later, she was still the chair of and a director of and shareholder in the private care provider Keys Group when it bought ADHD360 for £22.5m on 16 May.
ADHD360, which says it is the “leading UK-wide ADHD clinic”, has grown its NHS income sharply in recent years.
At the time of the purchase, Jones was also an operating partner in G Square Capital, the private equity company that owns Keys Group.
She sold her shares in Keys Group and resigned her roles there and at G Square Capital in early June 2025, before she started at the DHSC on 16 June. But MPs believe her tenure at Keys Group could represent a conflict of interest.
Ben Coleman, a Labour MP and member of the Commons health and social care select committee, said: “People will want to feel reassured that future regulation of private ADHD and autism assessments is beyond reproach. Given her recent close involvement with ADHD360, I would encourage Ms Jones to recuse herself from that work, as she has done over Palantir, to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest.”
Jones has already recused herself from involvement in the department’s decision over whether to extend Palantir’s £330m, seven-year contract with the NHS. That happened in July after MPs raised concerns about Jones having a potential conflict of interest because she had also worked for the health lobbyists Carnall Farrar, which advised Palantir regarding the contract.
In June, Jones apologised after she was reprimanded by the Civil Service Commission for breaching lobbying rules by failing to ask the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments for prior approval before undertaking work for four healthcare companies.
Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, said: “Public trust is paramount. Any decisions regarding the regulation of these clinics must be entirely free from the suspicion of a conflict of interest.
“Given Sam Jones oversaw the multimillion-pound acquisition of ADHD360 just weeks before entering the Department of Health, ministers must ensure she recuses herself immediately, just as she has over Palantir. It shouldn’t take investigative reporting for the health secretary to get a grip on basic propriety.”
Jones, 55, was widely admired in the NHS when she ran West Hertfordshire NHS trust in 2013-15. After a role with NHS England, she began working in private healthcare. Boris Johnson as prime minister handed her a key role in Downing Street in 2021. She returned to private health in 2023 and by 2023-24 had paid roles or shareholdings in 13 health or consultancy organisations.
An ally of Jones said her link to ADHD360 was “very tenuous” and that there was only a “small overlap in the time between Keys Group owning ADHD360 and her joining the DHSC”. Jones did not answer questions put by the Guardian.
The NHS has paid ADHD360 just over £26m for its services since 2020, according to figures supplied by the Tussell public expenditure database.
A Department of Health and Social spokesperson said: “When joining the department, the permanent secretary brought with her over 30 years’ worth of health and care experience.
“There is no conflict of interest. The permanent secretary has appropriately declared all interests, in this post and when she was a non-executive director [of the DHSC]. She resigned from all her private-sector posts before taking on the permanent secretary role at the department. The department remains committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity.”
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