A failing NHS trust blew £58,000 sending 14 staff on a fact-finding jolly to Las Vegas – including a five-night stay in a casino hotel.
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust is rated as ‘requires improvement’ by the care regulator and ended last year with a deficit of £13million.
But today it sought to defend the trip, which critics described as ‘obscenely expensive’ and a ‘slap in the face for taxpayers’.
The delegation flew to the States for a technology conference in September, where they watched demonstrations of a new patient record system the Trust plans to adopt.
They stayed at the prestigious New York New York hotel, which boasts its own roller coaster, a replica of the Statue of Liberty and is located on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust is rated as ‘requires improvement’ blew £58,000 sending 14 staff on a fact-finding jolly to Las Vegas – including a five-night stay in the prestigious New York New York casino hotel, which boasts its own roller coaster
The Trust, which has 27,426 people on its waiting lists, said admission to the conference cost around £600 per person, with the remainder of the spend covering flights, hotel and food
One company that attended the expo revealed on social networking site LinkedIn that they were delighted to meet three staff from the Trust, who ‘fought the jet lag to explore the nightlife in Freemont Street, where life comes at you fast’.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘This extraordinary bill is a slap in the face for taxpayers, as well as patients waiting for treatment.
‘We keep hearing that there is no fat left to trim, but when healthcare bosses go on obscenely expensive trips to Sin City, those claims ring somewhat hollow.’
The Trust, which has 27,426 people on its waiting lists, said admission to the conference cost around £600 per person, with the remainder of the spend covering flights, hotel and food.
All staff flew economy and were not able to claim expense for entertainment, it added.
Phil Holland, chief information officer at the PAH, and one of the three employees named as having enjoyed the city’s nightlife, said: ‘A multi-disciplinary team of 14 people attended to enable us to capture insights from over 400 sessions that were taking place.
‘This annual conference was the only opportunity to access all parts of the system, its developers and future developments under one roof.’
He added that the funding came from a separate budget assigned to the new IT system and ‘did not come from frontline staffing, operational or healthcare budgets’.
The Care Quality Commission rates the Trust as ‘requires improvement’ overall. It received the same mark for safety and the quality of its leadership team.
The latest NHS data shows 47 per cent of patients on its waiting lists have been waiting longer than the target 18 weeks for routine treatment, 50 per cent of attendees at A&E wait more than four hours to be treated, admitted or discharged and 50 per cent of ambulances are forced to queue too long to drop off patients.