CorpComms Magazine

NHS spending on public relations has doubled since 2007, in spite of fears of a funding shortfall in frontline services.

The Health Service outlay on private PR consultancies rose from £5 million in 2007 to £9.8 million in 2009. These figures emerge as the NHS Confederation advises management to investigate efficiency savings for a potential shortfall of £20 billion in the health budget over the next four years.

Shadow Health Minister Stephen O'Brien accused Labour of being 'more interested in spinning good headlines than stopping cuts'.

When the issue was raised in the House of Lords, Health Minister Baroness Thornton defended the expenditure as an investment in preventative medicine, arguing the firms were employed to support 'major public health behaviour change programmes - such as tobacco control, sexual health, flu immunisation, Change4life [an Internet healthy lifestyle campaign], and drug and alcohol harm reduction'.

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