NHS desk worker gets £37k Porsche Boxster sports car funded by the taxpayer

NHS desk worker gets £37k Porsche Boxster sports car funded by the taxpayer

Dozens of NHS desk workers are driving top-of-the-range rental cars that are funded by the taxpayer, it emerged today.

Strategic Health Authorities around the country have spent a staggering £1,000,000 every year since 2007 on the luxury cars.

They included a Jaguar XF, Mercedes CLS, Audi A5 Coupe and BMW 330 for staff who needed the vehicles to get around.

Sports car: A manager at the North West health authority rented a luxury Porsche Boxster as it emerged the NHS has spent £1m every year since 2007 on rental cars for staff

Shockingly, one 'pen pusher' was allowed to hire a £37,000 Porshe Boxster - costing taxpayers thousands of pounds.

The details emerged as the NHS faces biting cuts around the country, with many patients complaining of appalling care.

 

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One SHA, Yorkshire and the Humber, splashed out £400,000 a year on 95 luxury motors, according to The Sun.

Reforms: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has vowed to cut NHS waste

The worker who was handed a Porsche is employed by the second biggest spender, North West, which pays £4,500 towards each manager's annual rental costs. The figure amounts to £120,000 a year.

Across the country, the total bill for England's ten SHAs since 2007 came to £2,995,181. The figure amounts to almost £1,000,000 a year.

Spending on bureaucracy has soared 50 per cent since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007. But spending on cancer has increased by just 30 per cent.

Tory MP and Health Select Committee member Chris Skidmore said that taxpayers would be 'angry they're funding luxury cars'.

London is the only authority that does not allow managers to rent cars.

The Conservatives have vowed to 'root out' NHS waste but critics have complained that their cost-cutting could lead to a privatisation of the health service.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has said in the past that primary care trusts and strategic health authorities which cover a range of NHS trusts and supervise local NHS services are exerting too much control. 

Under Tory reforms, primary care trusts will not be scrapped immediately, but will be phased out as power is passed to doctors.

Mr Lansley will point to the joint Tory-Lib Dem document which states: 'We will strengthen the power of GPs as patients’ expert guides through the health system by enabling them to commission care on their behalf.'