THE shambles that is the Coperforma contract has now hit its nadir.

Our revelation that nobody really knows if one of the companies picking up patients had a licence shows the whole private model is broken.

One could argue that confusion and uncertainty is almost the certain consequence of the mess that has unravelled since Coperforma took over on April 1.

We rightly ran full reports on how patients were let down.

Those waiting for dialysis appointments and other hospital meetings were late or sometimes not even picked up at all.

Thousands of patient journeys were affected.

And now we hear nobody knows if DMS - subcontracted by Coperforma - had a licence.

The clinical commissioning group say it's nothing to do with them and Coperforma say the same.

This brings us the logical conclusion of the layers of control and responsibilities have gone to pot.

The privatised service is unfit by design as now we have a total lack of accountability. There are so many bodies caught up in this that even those involved forget who is who.

Coperforma are in no way innocent in all this but like their spokesman said, "if the Care Quality Commission doesn't know then how are we supposed to know".

What an awful and sorry mess.

We have a harassed and overworked watchdog having to untangle multiple layers in a service which is failing patients.

The people in these organisations need to take more responsibility. They are well paid and are supposed to be working for our benefit.

We back the call by MPs Caroline Lucas and Peter Kyle for the NHS and the secretary of state Jeremy Hunt to step in.