More than £200m has been paid to two consultancies for work on the New Hospital Programme to date, HSJ can reveal.
KPMG and engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald have been working as commercial and delivery partners for the government’s New Hospital Programme.
They had received £106m and £102m respectively up to September last year, a release under the Freedom of Information Act reveals.
As of May 2023, the firms had received less than £30m each, suggesting spending ramped up significantly through the second half of 2023, and into 2024.
A programme director at a trust, who did not want to be named, said: “It is a scandalous amount of money, made worse because NHP has delivered so little in that time.”
NHP was set up to deliver 40 hospital building projects — often referred to as “40 new hospitals” by the previous government — by 2030, but has been beset by delays and rising costs.
The new government triggered a review of the pipeline of projects, seeking to address a shortfall in funding, concerns about bias in the selection and prioritisation, and seeking to move to a “realistic” timetable. Twenty-five schemes have been told to pause work if their funding has not already been approved, while the review takes place.
The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond when asked to explain the consultancy spending increase.
Date: 8 January