CASH-STRAPPED Southend Hospital bosses paid a team of consultants £343,000 in just six months to tell them how to save money – and then saw its debts rocket under their watch, much to the amazement of MP Sir David Amess.

A Freedom of Information request by the Echo shows the hospital, whose finances are being investigated by health watchdog Monitor, paid Kingsgate Advisory the amount from September 22 to March 31, to oversee a cost-cutting “transformation programme”.

However, the hospital’s deficit spiralled under their watch, from a projected £8.7million last September to £9.8million at the end of 2014/15, leading to Monitor launching an investigation saying it could see no tangible recovery plan.

The hospital employs its own head of finance on about £130,000 a year, but employed the Kingsgate team of three people, led by Andrew Murphy, and has just renewed their services until August.

Sir David, Tory MP for Southend West, who will raise the matter in Parliament, said: “I thought it was absolutely extraordinary to employ a highly- paid finance director, only for them to oversee such a large deficit.

“I was even more appalled to learn consultants were employed to find out how to save money.

"This has cost the taxpayer another £343,000.”

Sam Older, from Unison, said: “To pay consultants an amount of money to save an amount of money, when you have staff already, smacks of hypocrisy.

“If you haven’t got the people able to do the job, then hire them.

“The NHS is a gravy-train for the highly-paid unemployed.”

The hospital hired James O’Sullivan as finance director on a salary banding of between £125,000 and £130,000 in 2014 and in September last year wrote to all staff asking them for ideas on how to make cutbacks in each ward and department.

The hospital said the consultants had helped cut down on staffing costs, with cutbacks saving the hospital £2.65million for the final five months of 2015.

Kingsgate has previously been drafted in at Barnet and Chase hospitals and were paid £156,000 for five months’ work.

Kingsgate’s website boasts that Mr Murphy can bring “rapid financial change”.

Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Employing a consultancy at some cost seems an odd way to start a cost-cutting drive, and it’s clear that results so far have not been what taxpayers would expect and deserve.”

THE boss of Southend Hospital’s finances has denied Kingsgate have been an expensive mistake, and said the firm will be a good long-term investment.

James O’Sullivan blamed winter pressures, fines for missed targets, and investment into services for the hospital’s deficit rising to £9.8million under the watch of Kingsgate.

He revealed the firm has helped the hospital devise a savings plan of £13.6million by 2016, and were at the forefront of a “clinically-led” programme that will transform the way the hospital works.

He said: “With Kingsgate’s support, we have been able to implement a number of shortterm cost saving initiatives which have contributed to notable successes for the trust.

“These include a significant reduction in agency spend which we continue to maintain.

“Some of the money saved has also been invested to ensure the trust consistently meets its targets.

“These include referral to treatment and four-hour A&E waiting targets, which resulted in Southend being the best performing trust in Essex at the end of the financial year, both in terms of performance and having the lowest deficit.

“We believe the money we have invested in Kingsgate short termwill enable us to gain in the longer term by reducing waste, improving efficiency and reducing delays, allowing us to continue to invest in our services to further improve patient care as we move forward."