By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

NHS TAYSIDE has used charity funds to send employees on educational trips abroad.

Over the last two years £25,000 has funded travel and accommodation to conferences in Boston, Barcelona, Prague and elsewhere in relation to the Safer Patients Initiative (SPI).

That initiative was aimed at reducing “avoidable errors” that harm patients in hospital and NHS Tayside attracted £1 million of funding for the scheme.

The investment was for improvements in “front-line services” and could not be used to fund trips abroad to conferences.

It has now emerged that a successful application was made to NHS Tayside Endowment Fund, charitable donations that are overseen by a handful of people who take decisions in secret.

Health bosses yesterday insisted the grant from the endowment fund in relation to SPI activities was an appropriate use of the funding.

Endowment fund awards have come under scrutiny because the trustees have refused to hold their meetings in public.

The rules of the NHS Tayside Endowment Fund do not exclude the public but it has been the trustees “preference” to hold their meetings in private, thereby effectively shunning scrutiny of their decisions.

Inquiries resulted in a short list being issued with brief headings on expenditure from the endowment fund over the last year.

The list includes SPI but gives no more specific details of how the cash award was spent.

Yesterday Pat O’Connor, NHS Tayside’s head of risk management, who has played a leading role in the SPI, confirmed the cash did fund trips to conferences abroad.

“When we were awarded the Safer Patients Initiative grant (around £1 million from a health foundation) it was very clear that the majority of that money had to be spent on front-line services,” said Mrs O’Connor.

“I went to the (NHS Tayside) Endowment Committee and asked for £25,000 for travel and education of staff to support the SPI. That money was granted over two years.”

She said that investment had “reaped huge rewards” and she believed a further £300,000 award to develop NHS Tayside as an “exemplar” site for patient safety would not have happened without the endowment fund grant.

NHS Tayside’s chief operating officer Gerry Marr said spending the endowment cash on staff education for the SPI was “absolutely the right thing to do”.

“It is a good use of endowments to support staff education,” said Mr Marr.