We will in time no doubt be told that “lessons have been learned” from what looks like a fairly calamitous contract for the provision of an out-of-hours service for east Kent GPs.

The contract with Primecare also included the provision of the NHS 111 service but this week it emerged the company had given notice that it intended to terminate the contract barely a year into a three year agreement.

Rewind to last year and the announcement of the deal and the outlook seemed positive. We were told that the contract had been the result of a “comprehensive and robust procurement process.”

There had been “rigourous evaluation by patients and commissioners” and talk of a concept of “care navigation”. It was classic PR flannel - giving every impression that nothing could possibly go awry.

Just how rigourous and robust the evaluation was in reality will now - quite rightly - be the subject of an investigation.

So, what did go wrong? It seems one issue might have been the specification of the contract. We don’t know the precise terms but it became apparent quite quickly that Primecare was struggling to meet the requirements.

It was issued with a warning notice by east Kent CCGs just a few months into the contract and it seems the company continued to struggle. A damning inspectors report by the CQC vividly underlined the problems the company had - concluding that vulnerable patients were at risk.

One interesting admission that could be relevant is that the CCGs did not impose any financial sanctions for under-performance by the company.

This might suggest that the fault lay not entirely with the company but with the four CCGs that drew up the contract specification.

Either way, this is a serious setback and alongside the on-going problems with the private ambulance service run by G4S, raises questions about whether health care organisations shoulder the blame as much as the providers.

Money is always a factor of course at a time when demand for NHS services is spiralling - and budgets are not. Contracting out services to save money has become the preferred route for NHS organisations but when things go awry like this, perhaps it is time to consider bringing back services in-house.