Plans to take up to £500,000 out of patient care to pay a private consulting firm to write a report into Kingston's financially-troubled hospital have been condemned by GPs and NHS campaigners.

The money, which could pay for 100 hip replacements, is being paid to the world’s largest consultancy firm, McKinsey, to produce a report into ways the Hospital can reduce its excessive A&E waiting times and predicted £6.1m deficit. 

Kingston Hospital is currently under investigation by health regular Monitor because of its waiting times and financial difficulties.

But Claremont Medical Centre GP Martin Wolfson, who has worked in the health service for more than 40 years and oversees thousands of patients in the borough, called the spending “an absolute scandal”.

He said: “It is disgraceful. This money would be better spent on patients.

“Kingston Hospital provides a very good service, but they are between a rock and a hard place.

“There is this idea that the hospital is badly-run, however, people on the ground do not feel this way.

“They can’t make ends meet, but the same story is seen all across the NHS.

“The fact is the Government is asking for dramatic savings that just can’t be sustained.

“The money should stay in patient care. How is this report going to help?”

McKinsey makes millions of pounds a year supplying consulting services to the NHS and advising healthcare providers.

It is also the company behind a 2010 report that could have seen the A&E or maternity units at Kingston or other south-west London hospitals closed.

Last month Kingston Hospital’s interim chief executive Ann Radmore warned the “very fragile” A&E department could crumble during an upsurge of patients in the winter months.

Keep Our NHS Public member Richard Donnelly said: “This is just another case of public money that should go towards patient care being channelled into private companies.

“It is ridiculous that money like this is going towards reports and not to patients.”

A spokeswoman for Kingston’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said: “The work under way in Kingston is all about patient care across the whole health system both inside the hospital, and also out of hospital care.

“It is not in any way about reviewing management. Kingston CCG and NHS England both are keen to see improvements to the patient pathway.”

Grahame Snelling, from Kingston Healthwatch, said: “Healthwatch recognises that there is a need to take the inquiry. Such reports are going to cost money.”

A spokeswoman for McKinsey said: “We never comment about our client work.”