NHS bosses told to spend 80pc less on consultancy

STEVE BARCLAY has told NHS bosses to free up money for front-line services by cutting down the amount they spend on management consultants by as much as 80 per cent.

The Health Secretary has written to NHS England and other national health bodies to order them to cut their spending by at least 20 per cent, which would save taxpayers £170million.

He has urged them to decrease the amount they spend on “consultancy, professional spend and labour contracts” if they can.

It comes as the NHS faces huge waiting lists as the country recovers from a backlog of treatments since lockdown.

In a letter to national NHS bodies,

‘Consultancy spend rose in the pandemic but we have to act quickly before wasteful spending becomes the norm’

finance chiefs from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) say that Mr Barclay “sees 20 per cent as a clear minimum level of saving, but feels there will be many instances where this could go further – often 80 per cent – and is clear that he may wish to increase the ambition in the light of that work”.

Spending by DHSC on management consultants rapidly increased during the Covid crisis to £1.2billion in 202021, but has fallen back to £13million in the first quarter of this year.

The work is the first outcome of an efficiency taskforce set up by Mr Barclay and supported by Lord Agnew, the former Treasury minister.

Reductions in the overall number of staff in national and local NHS management bodies – which do not provide patient care – are expected to follow.

A DHSC source said: “Consultancy spend increased during the pandemic for obvious reasons, but we have to act quickly before wasteful spending becomes the norm.”