BMA: NHS has become “management consultant addict”

The British Medical Association (BMA) has said that the government is spending too much on recruiting external management consultants who are “not the answer” to NHS problems.

NHS expenditure on management consultants is “too high” and should be stopped because it is “wasting money”, the association said after the release of new figures from the Conservative Party concerning NHS consultancy changes.

Dr Paul Miller, who chairs the BMA’s consultants’ committee, stated that the NHS had become a “management consultant addict” that was diverting money from patient care into new management roles from the private sector.

He said: “The NHS needs good management and managers who involve those that know about patients and the NHS, such as the staff who provide the services, not
just people parachuted in from outside the hospital with no hospital experience.”

Yesterday, the prime minister, Tony Blair, faced questions from union representatives at the Trades Union Congress regarding the perceived privatisation of the health service.

Mr Blair responded that 250,000 more staff were now in employment as public sector workers in the NHS – a sign that the government believed in a public health service.