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A committee of MPs has called for more transparency to ensure that the NHS achieves value for money from management consultants.
The Commons health committee said it had been "unacceptable" that a full breakdown of spending had not been made available.
Its report recommended that making spending subject to public monitoring could lead to an improvement in the way consultants are used.
MPs also called for an assessment of the "value of the consultants' output".
The investigation followed an increase in the amount of public spending used on external management consultants in recent years.
The report said that details should be published on the daily rates charged by consultants and which organisation they came from.
MPs criticised the present system for not undertaking a "thorough and systematic" assessment of the value of work achieved by consultants.
The British Medical Association welcomed the call for transparency on the cost to the NHS of private management consultants.
BMA consultants committee chair Dr Jonathan Fielden called for management consultants to be "ditched" from the NHS in a speech given yesterday.
"NHS staff already have widespread expertise and knowledge," Fielden explained.
"The benefit of management consultants, steeped in the ethos of the private sector - must be questioned and needs to be justified."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd