THE Taxpayers’ Alliance has accused the NHS of wasting millions of pounds of public money on “unnecessary” jobs such as public relations, diversity and "green" staff.
A survey carried out by the campaign group involved sending Freedom of Information requests to every NHS organisation - although not all responded.
Nationally the Taxpayers’ Alliance found that the NHS in England spent more than £46m last year on 1,129 “unnecessary jobs”.
Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers expect the health budget to be spent on real doctors, not spin doctors. It’s time for health chiefs to launch a war on waste and ensure the NHS budget is spent on patients rather than squandered on bureaucrats.”
The campaign group calculated that NHS organisations in the North-East spent more than £1.36m employing staff engaged in jobs such as public relations, equality and diversity and environment and energy.
In North Yorkshire the sum spent on similar roles came to a total of £481,000.
One of the largest sums was spent by the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys mental health trust, which spent £241,730 in 2013 on salaries for seven staff including three communications officers, three equality and diversity staff and an environmental and energy officer.
The North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) spent £138,086 on two communications staff and two equality and diversity staff.
South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust spent a total of £121,797 on three communications officers and an energy and sustainability officer.
North Tees and Hartlepool spent £88,364 in salaries for a three strong communications team.
A spokeswoman for South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “The role of a communications team is not just about responding to media enquiries – it’s about ensuring information about our organisation is accessible to patients, staff and the public and making sure the service is accountable.
"We have a very small team in a large and complex organisation with a budget of £550m and cover many different roles including patient information, staff communication, ensuring both our internal and external websites are kept up-do-date, corporate communications, membership and public consultation.”
A spokesman for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) - which did not initially respond to the survey - said it spent £213,000 a year on communicaions.
He added: "Recent benchmarking against public sector value for money indicators showed that CDDFT is in the best performing quartile for economy and efficiency in terms of our spend on communications.”
A spokesman for Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust said: “Staff working in these and other non-clinical services play an important role in supporting our front line services, so that they can focus on providing excellent patient care.”
A spokeswoman for the North East Ambulance Service said: “Most organisations, both public and private, include these roles – which is evidence that they’re necessary roles, not exclusive to the NHS.”
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