NHS bosses in Yorkshire spend more on public relations than anywhere else, figures reveal.
Pressure group, The Taxpayers Alliance, has revealed that West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Customer Support Unit (WSYBCSU), spent £1.4m paying its 36 strong communications team in 2013 – an average of £39,000 each.
The unit, which provides public relations (PR) officers and support for local health groups, including Greater Huddersfield, Calderdale and North Kirklees clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), was revealed as having four staff earning more than £50,000 and a staggering 18 on more than £35,000.
A further 17 earn between £24,000 and £30,000.
Despite having a 36 strong team The Examiner’s inquiry about the hefty wage bill was re-directed to a Manchester media team.
Efforts to get a statement from the WSYBCSU took eight phone calls, with four separate PR workers failing to answer their phones.
The Yorkshire based NHS media team working for South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust, who provide mental health services in Kirklees, also appeared high on the list in twelfth place with 14 PRs at a cost of almost £380,000.
A further two PR staff are employed directly by Huddersfield and Calderdale Foundation Trust hospitals to cover HRI and CRH while Mid Yorkshire Trust, which runs Dewsbury and District Hospital has two more.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service has a further three more communication workers of its own.
The combined wage bill across the five groups exceed £2m.
Rory Deighton, director of patients’ watchdog Kirklees Healthwatch, said: “These figures do feel really high. One complaint from patients is that they don’t have enough information about the massive changes we are experiencing in our health system.
“So the money might be being spent on PR, but we would question whether the messages are getting out there effectively.”
A statement from WSYBSCU, said: “It is misleading to suggest our services employ an exceptional number of communications or ‘PR’ staff.
“Unlike most CSUs in the country, we not only provide services under contract to the 15 CCGs in our area but we also provide communications services to NHS England’s 17 Area Teams across the North and Midlands and East regions; in all our services stretch from the Scottish borders down to the M25.
“We believe our services provide exceptional value for money and are a vital part of the operation of the NHS - we help to communicate information about health and health services, supporting people to make informed choices or contribute to plans for changing services.”
A spokeswoman added that she thought the salaries published by the Taxpayers Alliance were the top of each pay grade and so were not a true picture of actual earnings.
But the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which is funded by wealthy donors and was once revealed as having a director who paid no British tax, said the NHS “wasted” over £46 million last year on 1,129 unnecessary jobs in areas such as public relations, the EU and green staff.
It claimed the money spent on the positions could have paid for 1,662 full time nurses.
Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers expect the health budget to be spent on real doctors, not spin doctors.
“The NHS employs far too many people in jobs that do nothing to deliver frontline patient care”.
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