Hospital rapped for trip to Barcelona

1:29pm Friday 2nd March 2007

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A GROUP of senior managers is to travel to Barcelona for a three-day conference at a cost of almost £3,000 - despite hospital bosses preparing to axe 95 jobs to balance the books.

A consultant doctor, a senior nursing sister, and a member of the senior management team at The Royal Bolton Hospital will fly to Barcelona next month to attend a quality and safety conference.

The hospital says the team is flying with a budget airline from Liverpool's John Lennon Airport. The fares, it says, are £60 each, but the conference itself will cost £638 per person.

It will feature speakers from across the globe and will look at improving outcomes for patients and communities and promoting research into quality and safety improvements. It promises to provide practical ideas to be taken back into the workplace.

A hotel has not yet been booked for the team, although three-star hotels in Barcelona start at around £60 per person per night.

In January, hospital bosses announced they would have to axe 95 jobs and cut £3.7 million from the budget in order to meet Government efficiency targets.

Last April, hospital chiefs sent a nine-strong team on a £9,000 trip to America to look at best practices in Wisconsin, just days after announcing 130 job cuts and the loss of 68 beds.

Union bosses are furious that managers are once again travelling abroad.

Harry Hanley, branch secretary of Unison, said: "We gave the employer every chance not to make the same mistake twice, but it is clear lessons have not been learned.

"At a time when 95 jobs are being axed, again they are not listening and sending people to Barcelona regardless. Now it is left to the public to stop this waste of NHS money."

Hospital bosses insist the trip will be beneficial to patients and the money to fund the trip has been raised by charging leading health workers from elsewhere to visit the Royal Bolton.

Heather Edwards, head of communication at the Royal Bolton Hospital, said: "This is very much about sharing knowledge and learning lessons to help enhance patient care.

"None of the funding has come from anything that would otherwise have been used for patient care. There are delegates from other hospitals in the UK attending and it will be a very intense course."