Software firm belonging to Tory donor Frank Hester pays out £50m dividend

Frank Hester stepped down as a director of TPP in September, but remains the majority owner with 75% or more of the shares. Photograph: CHOGM Rwanda 2022/YouTube/PA

The software company belonging to the Tory donor Frank Hester, a major contractor to the NHS, has paid a £50m dividend after sales and profits surged.

TPP Group, which was founded by Hester in 1997 as The Phoenix Partnership, specialises in healthcare technology and provides its SystmOne software to the NHS. The company says it is used by 7,800 NHS organisations, including more than 2,600 GP practices and a third of acute mental health trusts, with 61m electronic health records stored in its database. It has also expanded abroad, including to China, the Middle East and the Caribbean.