Full story in Pulse, 5 February 2018
Health and social care leaders in Kent and Medway paid over £6m to one management consultant to draw up plans to overhaul the local healthcare system.
A freedom of information request sent by local campaigners to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust revealed that Carnall Farrar was paid £6,051,199 between 2015/16 and 2017/18 ‘to contribute their expertise, capacity, skills and experience of delivering large-scale change programmes’ to create the budget cutting plans.
However, local GPs have said the sum is a ‘dizzying amount to spend’ in a region with high deprivation and ‘significant unmet needs’, which has seven practices in Folkestone – which cover around 64,000 patients – having to apply to NHS South Kent Coast CCG for formal list closure, saying there is a shortage of 16 full-time equivalent GPs.