John McCallister MLA has queried why the Health Minister has decide to spend millions of pounds on management consultants to help deliver plans aimed at transforming the Health Service in Northern Ireland.
The South Down MLA, who is also his Party’s Health spokesperson, said:
“It seems bizarre to me that the Health Minister should set out to spend millions of pounds of scarce resources on management consultants, when one considers that in the past the DUP have said they are committed to reducing administration and management costs.
I am particularly puzzled by the statement that Edwin Poots feels he needs Ernst & Young Management consultants to provide the detail of who needs what and where.
I would have thought that he had quite enough officials in the Health Service already, whose job it was to tell him that. What is he paying existing managers for?
Is the Minister saying that he can’t manage his Department or that he hasn’t enough decent quality managers in there to assist him?
Or is it that the Minister is bringing in Management Consultants to produce a report which will recommend the closure of hospitals and services – such as accident & emergency departments – so that he can pass the buck and blame the consultants and try to wash his hands of the matter?
If Edwin Poots wants to close services at the likes of the Causeway and Daisy Hill hospitals then he should come out and say so and not seek to hide behind a report compiled by management consultants at great cost to the public purse. He will fool no-one.”