The request asked for total approved spend on external consultants (management, financial etc), by NHS Improvement and by trusts and other NHS bodies, for the financial years 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.

The information on NHS Improvement spend is published elsewhere. For NHS bodies, figures for overall spend by trusts in 2014-15 and 2016-16 was provided, but other information was not held.