Hospitals spend £6m in bid to save £75m

MANAGING CONSULTANTS DRAFTED IN TO PLUG FINANACE BLACK HOLE

THREE Greater Manchester hospitals have spent more than £6m between them on management consultants to help tackle a £75m financial black hole.

Central Manchester, University Hospitals South Manchester and Stockport NHS foundations trusts have all drafted in advisers in a bid to balance their books.

Stockport and Wythenshawe have spent around £2m each on advice from accountants KPMG, while Central have hired McKinsey & Co for a similar amount.

After earlier this year applying to a national programme aimed at helping trusts improve their finances, the three were selected and allocated management consultants by NHS Improvement, but have had to cover the costs themselves.

Stockport, which runs Stepping Hill hospital, has already announced hundreds of job losses, a ward closure and a huge hike in parking charges as a direct result of advice from KPGM, who sent in 19 management consultants in May and are due to leave early next month.

The trust had been struggling with a deficit of £40m this year and says the £2.2m it has spent on external consultancy should save it at least £11m.

A spokesman said it did not have the internal expertise to provide that advice, adding: “These savings will continue into the future, protecting and enhancing care for patients through better use of resources.”

Central Manchester, which runs Manchester Royal Infirmary, the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and a number of other sites, was facing down a shortfall of £29.2m.

It spent £2m on consultants between May and the middle of this month to help close the gap and save a total of £70m, although no public announcements on savings or cuts have yet been made.

A spokesman said: “The purpose of this work was to support the trust’s capacity to deliver improvements in patient flow, identify further opportunities for how patients can be treated more promptly by tackling day-to-day challenges in how hospitals run and bring additional programme management support across existing savings programmes.”

UHSM, which runs Wythenshawe, recorded a deficit of £7.4m at the end of the last financial year. It has spent £2m on management consultants but says that should help it save £25m.

Diane Whittingham, chief executive at UHSM, said: “KPMG joined the trust in May this year and have been working with us to help stabilise our finances.”