Consultants get millions while wards threatened (From Your Local Guardian)

Consultants get millions while wards threatened

11:38am Wednesday 3rd September 2008

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Epsom and St Helier NHS trust lavished £1.67m on an army of “pen pushers” while threatening to close wards over the last financial year.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show spending on management consultants nearly trebled from £611,000 in 2006.

In the last eight years hospital bosses have spent almost £7.7m on consultants to help them run the trust.

Health campaigners accused hospital executives of short-changing patients and frontline staff by wasting colossal sums on bureaucracy.

Some expenditure went on appointing Ruth Harrison from Stoke Mandeville hospital, Buckinghamshire, where 33 patients died in a Clostridium difficile outbreak.

Other private advisers were paid for a review which recommended removing a third of light bulbs from corridors to cut electricity bills.

Geoff Martin, of London Health Emergency, said: “At the same time Epsom and St Helier was axing staff posts on the wards and slashing bed numbers to claw back a £24m deficit they were spending money on an army of advisers and bureaucrats like it was going out of fashion.

“It’s a scandal that spending on management consultants has almost trebled over just two years. While nurses and other staff have been told they need to tighten their belts there’s been a cash bonanza for the private consultancy industry.”

Mrs Harrison resigned in March after news of her appointment was leaked.

Her Durrow consultancy firm is still to receive £52,000 for a review into maternity and children’s services.

A trust spokeswoman said “Our most significant use of management consultants in recent years was to commit specialist, dedicated time to look at how the trust can save money by doing things more efficiently but without reducing the standard of care we provide.

“At the end of the financial year 2006-07, the trust was more than £5m in deficit.

“However, as a result of the expert input of the consultants, we made a surplus of £827,000 for the last financial year.”

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