Birmingham Children’s Hospital paid spin doctors £16k
A BIRMINGHAM hospital paid a PR company £16,000 for just 20 days’ work to handle the fallout from a damning report.
Birmingham Children’s Hospital chiefs brought in two senior media consultants from LTA Communications at a cost of £16,387 when the trust was faced with heavy criticism in a Healthcare Commission report a month ago.
They paid out the equivalent of £86 an hour on the crisis team – despite already having three press officers who work full-time and have a combined salary of at least £100,000.
The money mirrors the annual salary of a junior nurse.
Today, the dad of a baby who died at the hospital described it as “a pathetic waste of money”.
Businessman Ayaz Ahmed, from Moseley, whose daughter Alesha died in intensive care after waiting more than two weeks for a bed said: “Spending £16,000 on spin doctors is a pathetic waste of money when ill children can’t even get a bed they need.
“There is something fundamentally wrong with the NHS at the moment, no one cares about lives. I could look at the books and tell them exactly how they should be spending their money.”
He claimed: “They made millions in profit last year yet they want donations for new units and are wasting money like this.”
The figures were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act inquiry by the Birmingham Mail after hospital bosses refused to disclose the figure.
The consultants “advised” and managed press interest as the Foundation hospital came under fire for a catalogue of failings from a severe shortage of beds, causing 70 sick children to be turned away every month, and poor staff training which meant theatre nurses could not recognise surgical equipment.
Martin Salter, director of communications at the hospital, said: “LTA Communications assisted our in-house team with the huge amount of interest in the Healthcare Commission report. Their daily rates have been market tested and are considered to be excellent value for money.”
