Flying lessons and top hotels in £6m NHS expenses bill

HEALTH bosses used taxpayerfunded credit cards to pay for helicopter lessons, go-karting and five-star hotels.

Despite the NHS facing an unprecedented funding crisis, officials in England have been using the cards to splurge money on luxuries, bars and restaurants.

They have racked up £5.8million worth of spending in the past two years alone. The ‘government procurement cards’ were introduced by Labour in 1997, supposedly to enable senior staff to easily fund office supplies and travel costs.

But a Daily Mail investigation found senior officials in the largest health bodies have been using them in Wetherspoon’s pubs, cocktail bars, bowling alleys and McDonald’s.

One chief executive used his card to pay for a private helicopter lesson in the Cotswolds. Keith Conradi, head of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, claimed the £562 training day was a necessary part of his job. He has now been ordered to pay the money back.

The Mail used the Freedom of Information Act to ask 11 of the largest health bodies and watchdogs for details of their expenses on the cards.

Between them they had issued cards to 692 staff and spent at least £5.8million in the two years since March 2016.

The responses show the cards were routinely used to buy groceries, with £24,500 spent in Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Asda and Morrisons.

Another £25,100 was used on taxis.

Alex Wild, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Procurement cards are supposed to be used as a cost-effective means of buying low-value goods and services, but time and time again they’re used as a quick and easy way to rip off taxpayers for life’s luxuries.’