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Management consultants about to get a taste of their own medicine

By Ian Quinn

The phrase what goes around comes around springs to mind upon news filtering out of the NHS Confederation about the extent of cutbacks being expected of trusts in the face of the economic maelstrom heading their way.

Pulse is unsure just how many tears will be shed by GPs at the revelation that trusts will have to slash their spending on external consultants by up to 50%.

It could be because the move, on conservative calculations, with a small c that is, could save trusts £600,000 a year, which could go on better things, such as health services.

Or it could be because many GPs are still smarting at McKinsey - the leading management consultancy firm advising the NHS – after one of its partners claimed recently that practices had been ‘let off the hook' by the Government budget purge.

Speaking at a breakfast briefing recently (soon these no doubt will become liquid only affairs), Dr Penny Dash, vice- chair of the Board of Trustees at the King's Fund and a partner at the firm, called on PCTs to ‘put pressure on providers' to be more efficient, adding there was scope for taking ‘significant spend out of the primary care'

Well it looks as if the long list of consultants, for whom £1m can represent as little as 10 months work, might be feeling a few hooks of their own where it hurts in the not too distant future.

By Ian Quinn: it's what goes around comes around for management consultants By Ian Quinn: it's what goes around comes around for management consultants