THE cash-strapped trust that runs the Royal Bolton Hospital spent £3.5 million on management consultants last year — and has just awarded its chairman a £10,000 pay rise.

It comes as the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust prepares to make 218 redundancies — including “front line” staff at the hospital.

Other directors’ salaries have been frozen, but some staff have had a one per cent pay rise because of the government’s “Agenda for Change” NHS pay banding exercise.

David Wakefield, who was appointed interim chair of the trust in August, 2012, by health watchdog Monitor, became permanent chairman in May when he stepped down as chairman of Milton Keynes NHS Foundation Trust, and saw his wage increase from £50,000 to £60,000 per year.

The trust defended the increase, decided by the governors, and said it is “in line” with other similar-sized trusts.

It also defended money spent on management consultants, saying it was necessary to address Monitor’s concerns.

In August, a damning report by Monitor put the trust at the highest risk levels, revealing financial failings, weak governance and leadership, and a failure to meet healthcare targets.

The trust’s head of communications, Heather Edwards, said: “During 2012/13, the trust required a high level of external support and external assurance to ensure that issues leading to the breach of authorisation are addressed and that we, the public and our regulator Monitor are assured that the necessary actions have been taken.”

The trust, which was £14.6 million in deficit at the end of the 2012/13 financial year, has borrowed £17 million from the Department of Health, has to save £22 million this financial year, and is now losing more than £1 million every month.

When Mr Wakefield was appointed, the trust was losing more than £1.5 million each month and had £3.8 million ‘unaccounted for’, which had been inaccurately recorded as a saving.

The £3.5 million consultancy spend includes payments to Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) and the wages of all interim directors on the board — including turnaround director Terry Watson, who worked at the trust for six months and, it is believed, was paid £3,000 per day.

Mrs Edwards said: “This support included a review of quality processes, a review of financial governance, strengthening of operational management and support for turnaround to assist identifying the savings we need to make over the next three years.

“The total spending has strengthened our quality processes, improved our governance arrangements and helped to identify a significant amount of potential savings.”

Cllr Andy Morgan, who sits on Bolton Council’s health scrutiny committee, said he thought the chairman should be paid the “going rate” but should “prove himself” before getting a pay rise.

“I think he is the right man for the job, but I think this is a little bit premature and the timing is a bit inappropriate.

“The trust has spent £3.5 million in trying to correct this mess when we could have been investing in patient services.

“We are moving forward and I think they have got the right team there now,” he added.

Staff Side secretary Harry Hanley, who represents hospital workers, said spending £3.5 million on management consultants was “disgusting”.

“They spent £3,000 per day on the Turnaround director and he did nothing that staff side couldn’t have done but without being paid that money.

“I don’t know how you can give a chairman a 10 per cent pay rise when you are making redundancies.”