THE cost of hiring management consultants to advise on cutting NHS budgets was condemned yesterday by a leading union which said that some consultancy contracts were now reaching £150,000.
Amicus, the country’s largest manufacturing union, said that consultants were being paid £1,200 a day to give advice on how trusts could save money.

The union said that contracts usually ended up with hundreds of health jobs being axed.

The so-called “turn-around teams” have been hired to alleviate the financial crises in a number of NHS trusts across the country which are blamed for most of the health service’s £512 million deficit last year.

Derek Simpson, the general secretary of Amicus, said that hiring private consultants was “political dogma gone mad”.

He added: “We have to combat the philosophy that private is best. Not only is private provision detrimental to patients, it is costing taxpayers millions of pounds. As the so-called ‘turnaround’ experience demonstrates so vividly, privatisation does not provide value for money.”

Hospital doctors called last week for an end to NHS spending on management consultants, who cost an estimated £1 billon last year. They also accused the Government of “short-sighted” staff planning over fears for the future employment prospects for junior doctors.

Paul Miller, the chairman of the British Medical Association consultants committee, said that ministers risked destroying the NHS if they continued to waste money.

Amicus said it was joining other unions to submit antiprivatisation motions to the forthcoming TUC and Labour Party conferences.

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By Sam Lister, Health Correspondent

Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.