Anger as NHS chiefs run up £13m bill

Anger as NHS chiefs run up £13m bill on wining, dining and lavish away days
By James Slack
Last updated at 7:32 AM on 27th April 2011
NHS bureaucrats have blown £13million on lavish dinners and hospitality for themselves, it emerged last night.
Freedom of Information requests reveal strategic health authority staff are enjoying away days which cost more than a luxury meal at the Ritz.
Strategic Health Authorities – which face the axe under controversial NHS reforms – have squandered the extraordinary sums over the past four years.
Last year alone, the average spending by SHA chiefs on ‘hospitality for conferences, meetings and staff away days’ was £361,113 each.
The estimated £3.6million bill for wining and dining by the ten SHAs last year is the equivalent of 120 nurses, 600 hip operations or more than 16,000 hospital bed days.