Francis Xavier James Hester OBE (born April 1966) is a British businessman, and the founder, owner and CEO of software company The Phoenix Partnership.
[5][6] The Guardian reported that contracts worth £135m since April 2020 were awarded to his company by the Department of Health and Social Care, the majority for work under the GP IT Futures framework.
[20] A statement from The Phoenix Partnership said Hester "accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin".
[25] Abbott, who described the comments as "frightening", filed a complaint about the reported remarks to the Metropolitan Police's Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation Team.
The BMA's general practitioners' committee (GPC) voted in favour of an emergency motion that he had "contravened NHS England's fit and proper person test framework introduced in response to the 2019 Kark review recommendations."
Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison, which represents half a million NHS workers, echoed the views of the doctors' body.