IT’S SICK Fury at ambo trust’s £100k a month on money saving’ advisers

A HARD-UP ambulance trust paid consultants £574,000 – to give advice on saving money.

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust was already under fire for almost doubling spending on luxury cars for top managers to £ 825,238 a year while paramedics battle to meet 999 response targets.

Now it has emerged bosses splashed cash on signing up management consultancy SSG Healthcare to identify cost-saving measures. The consultants spent six months at the Cambridgeshire- based trust and clocked up daily fees ranging from £750 to £1,500 each.

A trust insider said: “It’s hard to understand how they can bring in consultants to show them how to save money at a time when they’ve increased costs on management lease cars and more management posts. Surely this would be better spent on frontline services.”

Health unions last night slammed the fees and a Unison spokesman said: “Years of underfunding and staff shortages are a headache for the entire NHS. But engaging expensive management consultants to stretch scarce resources even further isn’t the answer.” The trust, which had a £10million deficit last year, has spent £14million on private ambulances, up from £6.6million the previous year, because of rising demand and staff shortages. A spokesman said: “NHS Improvement introduced a financial improvement programme for trusts which face a significant financial challenge. “EEAST was invited into this programme and appointed a financial improvement team, SSG, to analyse effectiveness and efficiency. SSG started in December and would be paid if the required savings were delivered.

“Because of their efforts, EEAST is currently reporting a surplus of nearly £1million. The trust has paid £574,000 for the work.”

Meanwhile trust bosses face growing pressure to slash its huge bill for executives’ lease cars, as revealed in last week’s the Sunday People.

Workers claim the bill nearly doubled after the trust reinstated some senior management posts axed under a previous cost-cutting drive. NICOLE Scherzinger looks pretty in pink on a big night out.

The singer wowed in a plunging pastel trouser suit at the Arts Club in Mayfair, London.

She was taking a break from X Factor duties to party with fellow judge Sharon Osborne and soul legend Lionel Richie.

The night followed reports of Nicole, 39, throwing a “boozefuelled afterparty” with X Factor hunk Matt Linnen, 28, after last weekend’s live shows.

But whatever the former Pussycat Doll is up to, it all seems to be coming up rosé.