‘Marbella Man’ has health board contract ended

A CONSULTANT dubbed “Marbella Man” because he did some of his work from his Spanish home while earning almost £2,000 a day has had his contract terminated early.

Phillip Burns was installed as Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s interim recovery director by former chief executive Gary Doherty in a bid to revive its fortunes.

The board has been in special measures since June 2015. The recovery programme Mr Burns was in charge of was supposed to yield savings and efficiencies for the organisation.

But the board’s projected deficit to the end of the 2019-2020 financial year is expected to be around £57.72m – up from £42m in 2019.

The board is also expecting additional pressures of around £10m caused by the coronavirus pandemic as it looks to make savings of £45m this financial year.

It emerged in an FOI that the Welsh Government was to finance £350,000 towards payments made to Mr Burns.

His post was one of 38 management consultant roles uncovered by Plaid Cymru AM Llyr Gruffydd.

He said: “I understand that the focus of both the board and Welsh Government must be to deal with

Covid-19, but at some stage we must have answers about the £5m spent on these management consultants.”

Mr Burns’ contract was due to expire in June, but a spokesman for the health board confirmed it had been finished early and his contract had not been paid up in full.

The spokesman said: “Mr Burns’ contract was ended on April 21. The health board took the decision to stand down the recovery programme to focus on the COVID-19 response.”

In all, Mr Burns was due to earn more than £360,000 for his ninemonth-stint, while conducting 20% of it from his home in Marbella.

Mr Doherty left his £200,000-a-year chief executive role to become director of integration at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in February this year.