Hospital bosses in Dudley have spent more than £740,000 asking for advice from consultancy firms to help cut costs during the past 12 months.

Chief executive Paula Clark said hiring experts had enabled them to save money despite shelling out £191,500 more on outside firms than in the previous year.

It is hoped the trust, which runs Russells Hall and the Guest hospitals in Dudley and the Corbett in Stourbridge will save £2.1 million by reducing costs across the three sites.

Bosses say they have also been able to improve patient care by slashing waiting times for out-patient appointments and operations.

Money has been saved by changes made to admissions meaning patients go into hospital on the day of their surgery rather than the day before.

Bosses have also looked at extending operating lists for theatres to reduce the time patients spend on wards waiting for surgery. The hospital trust spent £741,000 in 2010/11 compared with  £551,000 in 2009/10 .

Chief executive Paula Clark said: “The trust engages consultancy firms when necessary to provide external expertise on specific projects to enable the organisation to meet the challenges and expectations placed upon us.

“For 2010/11 we allocated a budget of £751,000 to help deliver our transformation programme which is designed to identify cost efficiencies, reduce waste and improve services and patient care and we have spent approximately £742,500.  Since working on our transformation programme we have achieved savings in excess of the cost.”

The Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust needs to save £30million between April 2011 and March 2014 due to Government cuts. The trust has ruled out redundancies at this stage but said it would continue to review vacancies as they arise.