Health bosses pay private firms £28m for money-saving advice – despite already having waste-trimming staff
One trust paid £3.85million to PricewaterhouseCoopers in eight months, and another gave McKinsey £2.6million
HEALTH bosses are paying private consultancy firms £28million for money-saving advice – while employing their own staff tasked with trimming waste.
An investigation revealed some of the country’s most stricken health bodies are handing the companies hundreds of thousands of pounds a month.
The payments have been authorised by NHS Improvement, which oversees the NHS’s “financial turnaround programme”.
The organisation employs 179 staff whose jobs involve “monitoring or improving financial performance” on a combined annual salary of £12.8million.
That is an average of £71,508 each.
The British Medical Association slammed the “vast spending” at a time when the NHS is facing massive deficits and a shortage of doctors and nurses.
Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA general council, said: “The sheer amount of cash haemorrhaging out of the health service into the bank balances of consultancy firms will leave a bitter taste in the mouth for doctors and patients, particularly given the Government’s refusal to give the NHS the cash it so desperately needs for frontline services.
“It’s fashionable to commission external consultants to solve the problems of the health service but each of these moves is nothing more than an expensive waste.
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“It raises questions why the organisation did not have the in-house talent or capacity to help out the struggling trusts.
“The Government and NHS leaders should focus on protecting the future of our much-needed health service rather than covering up the mess created by their own political decisions with costly short-term projects like this.
“Our NHS is in crisis but the Government is in denial.
“Rather than management consultants, investment should be in medical consultants, GPs, and the rest of our starved health services.”
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust spent £3.85million on consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers in just eight months.
And private firm McKinsey received £2.6million from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, the freedom of information request by the BMA reveals.
The company also received a share of £1.6million from Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and £864,000 from Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
KPMG, Deloitte, EY and Grant Thornton are also pocketing NHS cash under the scheme.
NHS Improvement claims the work will deliver more than £50million of savings, with those sums published later this year.
David Hill, from NHS Improvement, said: “NHS Improvement considered the return on investment expected.”