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NHS spends £21m on consultancy advice on how to cut costs

NHS spends £21m on consultancy advice on how to cut costs
By Carolyn Wickware
30 August 2017



Health and social care bosses across England have spent £21m on management consultants to help draw up plans to overhaul regional NHS services.

A joint investigation by Healthcare Leader and Pulse, based on Freedom of Information requests to all 44 ‘Sustainability and Transformation Partnership’ (STP) regions, found that some areas have spent millions of pounds on external consultants to help them draw up the plans, which in many cases involve cutting frontline services.

Health and social care bosses across England have spent £21m on management consultants to help draw up plans to overhaul regional NHS services.

A joint investigation by Healthcare Leader and Pulse, based on Freedom of Information requests to all 44 ‘Sustainability and Transformation Partnership’ (STP) regions, found that some areas have spent millions of pounds on external consultants to help them draw up the plans, which in many cases involve cutting frontline services.

Local GP leaders said these sums were ‘difficult to justify’ when money was being removed from frontline services.

The plans were first announced in December 2015, with the aim of making £22bn worth of cuts to the health services by 2020/21.

Pulse’s investigation has revealed managers have been spending NHS money on private consultancy firms, which is being used for ‘public engagement communications’, ‘strategy analytics and modelling’ and ‘strategic workforce planning’ among other services.

Health and social care bosses across England have spent £21m on management consultants to help draw up plans to overhaul regional NHS services.

A Freedom of Information request to all 44 ‘Sustainability and Transformation Partnership’ (STP) regions found that some areas have spent millions of pounds on external consultants to help them draw up the plans, which in many cases involve cutting frontline services.

One STP – Kent and Medway – paid £3.2m to four firms, including £2.97m to Carnall Farrar for strategy, analytics, modelling and programme management.

Local GP leaders said these sums were ‘difficult to justify’ when money was being removed from frontline services.

Overall, the 19 STPs that responded said they had spent £9.17m since March 2016, when they started working on the plans. Extrapolated across the 44 STP areas in England, this comes to £21.2m.

And these figures do not include the £2.3m spent by healthcare leaders in North Central London, as revealed by the BMA in January; that STP failed to respond to this latest FOI request.

The plans were first announced in December 2015, with the aim of making £22bn worth of cuts to the health services by 2020/21. Pulse’s investigation has revealed managers have been spending NHS money on private consultancy firms, which is being used for ‘public engagement communications’, ‘strategy analytics and modelling’ and ‘strategic workforce planning’ among other services.

In Northumberland, Deloitte was paid almost £130,000 for ‘strategic financial and activity modelling’. Dr George Rae, chief executive for Newcastle and North Tyneside LMC, said the figure indicated ‘a sad state of affairs’ at a time when practices are ‘teetering on the brink’.

He said: ‘At the same time you’re getting management consultants in and giving them £129,000.’

Derbyshire LMC treasurer Dr Peter Holden, said payments to consultants were ‘not fair’. Derbyshire STP paid nearly £580,000 to GE Healthcare Finnamore, a self-described ‘one-stop consultancy firm’ for healthcare management, analytics, technology, leadership and governance.

Kent and Medway, and Northamptonshire STPs separately issued almost identical statements to Pulse, saying they ‘have invested only where it has been absolutely necessary to provide capacity, skills, experience and expertise that have not been available’.

They added: ‘We are starting to design new ways of working and delivering services in partnership that will save the NHS locally millions of pounds and improve the health and wellbeing and local care needs for our residents for years to come.’

GE Healthcare Finnamore responded to a Pulse request for comment saying NHS England’s Five Year Forward View required STP member organisations ‘to work together to an unprecedented degree’ and the company has ‘a successful track record of supporting initiatives of this kind’. Carnall Farrar said its fees ‘have been scrutinised’ and are designed to ‘demonstrate best value’. Deloitte declined to comment.

For more on primary care in STPs, register here to attend a Healthcare Leader Forum event in Manchester to hear from Rob Webster on Primary Care in the age of STPs.

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