“The amount of money Suffolk Primary Care Trust spends on themselves continues to surprise and anger me. To spend over £12,000 on the travel expenses of 10 board members is quite some achievement – that’s enough money to send each of them on a luxury cruise to New York on the Queen Mary 2”

Ben Gummer, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Ipswich, has today expressed his shock at figures which reveal Suffolk Primary Care Trust’s board members claimed £12,000 in travel expenses during the 2007/08 financial year.

The new figures, obtained by Ben under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, show that, in total, board members claimed £12,513.83 in travel expenses. Of the fifteen board members, Julian Herbert, Director of Finance and Performance, put in the largest claim of 2,567.87. Five members of the Board did not claim any travel expenses during 2007/08.

In 2007/08 Suffolk PCT’s board members claimed for a total of 31,598 miles (by car) as travel expenses.

Ben said: “The amount of money Suffolk Primary Care Trust spends on themselves continues to surprise and anger me. To spend over £12,000 on the travel expenses of 10 board members is quite some achievement – that’s enough money to send each of them on a luxury cruise to New York on the Queen Mary 2.

“More seriously, this £12,000 could have paid for 118 digital hearing aids, or a lung transplant, or indeed three major maxillo-facial procedures in the unit the same board has just closed down at Ipswich Hospital.

“I am sure people across Ipswich, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet this Christmas, will be as staggered as I am by this frivolous use of taxpayers’ money. Local people that I speak to are watching every pound they spend; it’s a shame that the same standards do not extend to the government bureaucrats in charge of our local NHS.

“These are tough times: we are entering the most difficult economic period in a century and all of us are all tightening our belts – all of us, it would seem, except for Suffolk Primary Care Trust, who would rather dispose of Ipswich Hospital’s head & neck cancer surgery team than control their own spending.”
 

11th April 2009