Contractor Carillion has sued a London hospital trust for £1.6m in a row over cleaning services.
The company has issued Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust with a writ because it claims the floor sizes of the areas to be cleaned were larger than they appeared in the design.

Carillion, formerly called Tarmac Servicemaster, claims that it was underpaid under the terms of the original contract because of this error. It wants its fees increased by £202,088 a year, backdated to April last year, when the contract started. The company blames the floor dispute on a "material error or inaccuracy" in data from the trust.

Carillion also wishes to recover £632,324 in charges that the trust has refused to pay and is seeking a declaration that documents signed by it and the trust should be binding on both parties.

The trust declined to comment.