UK - £1.2bn bill for the bureaucrat army
£1.2bn bill for the bureaucrat army
By Jenny Hope
Medical Correspondent
SPENDING on NHS bureaucracy has almost doubled in four years, research shows.
Nearly £1.2 billion went on administrators and clerical staff in Primary Care Trusts in 2007/8, a rise of 81 per cent since 2003/4.
The total is nearly twice as much as the £700 million the Health Service spent on anti-cancer drugs last year, with some patients being denied life-prolonging medication.
A further £139 million was spent on management consultants - almost three times as much as the £53 million spent five years ago.
Critics say the figures show the NHS has become a 'bureaucratic black hole' under Labour with money being diverted away from front line services to pay for an army of administrators.
The increase comes despite the number of PCTs halving from 303 to 152 - which was supposed to release £250 million to front line services.
PCTs are spending £115million a year on agency administrative and clerical staff, more than twice as much as in 2003-04. At the same time acute hospital trusts - which provide the healthcare patients receive in hospital - have cut their spending on bureaucrats by 8 per cent.
Andrew Lansley, health spokesman for the Conservatives, who obtained the figures under the Freedom of Information Act, said: 'Every penny spent on unnecessary management and paperwork is a penny less to provide better care for patients.
'These figures show just how far Labour have broken the promise they made in 1997 to spend NHS funds on patients not bureaucracy.
'The Conservatives are the only party that has set out a clear plan to root out this waste and bureaucracy and get money to the front line.'
Michael Summers, of the Patients Association, said 'Surely if these management consultants were doing the job they're paid for the bill would be going down because there's less need for them.'
But health minister Ann Keen said administrative and clerical staff formed only 8 per cent of the NHS workforce of more than 3million.
By Jenny Hope
Medical Correspondent
SPENDING on NHS bureaucracy has almost doubled in four years, research shows.
Nearly £1.2 billion went on administrators and clerical staff in Primary Care Trusts in 2007/8, a rise of 81 per cent since 2003/4.
The total is nearly twice as much as the £700 million the Health Service spent on anti-cancer drugs last year, with some patients being denied life-prolonging medication.
A further £139 million was spent on management consultants - almost three times as much as the £53 million spent five years ago.
Critics say the figures show the NHS has become a 'bureaucratic black hole' under Labour with money being diverted away from front line services to pay for an army of administrators.
The increase comes despite the number of PCTs halving from 303 to 152 - which was supposed to release £250 million to front line services.
PCTs are spending £115million a year on agency administrative and clerical staff, more than twice as much as in 2003-04. At the same time acute hospital trusts - which provide the healthcare patients receive in hospital - have cut their spending on bureaucrats by 8 per cent.
Andrew Lansley, health spokesman for the Conservatives, who obtained the figures under the Freedom of Information Act, said: 'Every penny spent on unnecessary management and paperwork is a penny less to provide better care for patients.
'These figures show just how far Labour have broken the promise they made in 1997 to spend NHS funds on patients not bureaucracy.
'The Conservatives are the only party that has set out a clear plan to root out this waste and bureaucracy and get money to the front line.'
Michael Summers, of the Patients Association, said 'Surely if these management consultants were doing the job they're paid for the bill would be going down because there's less need for them.'
But health minister Ann Keen said administrative and clerical staff formed only 8 per cent of the NHS workforce of more than 3million.
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