Millions wasted each year on NHS management consultants

New research has claimed that NHS management consultants are causing a service already under pressure to be less efficient rather than making things better.

Published in the journal Policy & Politics, the universities of Bristol, Seville and Warwick Business School have collected four years of data from 120 hospital trusts in England and discovered that £1.2 million a year is spent on consultants per trust.

The research revealed that more spending on management consultants leads overall to a significant rise in inefficiency, ultimately worsening services. With relatively small financial losses - approximately £10,600 for each hospital trust - the research found that the money spent on consulting ranged from zero to £5.6 million per year.

Andrew Sturdy, professor in Management at the University of Bristol, said: "Our research has clearly shown that management consultants are not only failing to improve efficiency in the NHS but, in most cases, making the situation worse. Data shows that it's a system-wide problem. This is money which, many argue, could be better spent on medical services or internal management expertise.

"From the study data we can only speculate on what lies behind these findings. One possibility is that consulting projects are highly disruptive, especially if the demand for them has been generated artificially by sophisticated selling, back stage deal-making and revolving doors between politicians, regulators, healthcare managers and civil servants."