NHS chiefs have spent up to £1 million sending medics to Angelina Jolie’s charity in Cambodia, despite cuts here.

Doctors and nurses sign up to boost leadership skills – but it costs taxpayers £15,000 for each six-month placement.

4Photo from the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation website shows Angelina Jolie doing humanitarian work in CambodiaCredit: These photos are the www.thisischriswhite.com and cannot be reprinted unless authorised to

NHS staff on foreign posting to Angelina Jolie’s charity under the Improving Global Health scheme that’s cost taxpayers £1million

Costs included are a monthly allowance between £800 and £1,000 and economy flights from £650 return.

The subsidy reflects the costs of living in the country covering accommodation, food, internet access, phone and local travel costs.

Around 40 paid NHS “volunteers” have been despatched to the actress’s Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation in the past decade despite the star being worth an estimated £120 million. The Improving Global Health programme is run by the Thames Valley and Wes𝑠e𝑥 NHS Leadership Academy.

All NHS employees can apply along with trainee doctors and nurses with money coming from the taxpayer-funded Health Education England.

Its annual report states it supports NHS professionals working abroad to gain “valuable experience and expertise” that could support the NHS.

But hospitals in the area are fund-raising for vital equipment.

Poole Maternity Hospital is asking for supporters to donate £7,105 for two phototherapy blankets.

Dorset County Hospital, which has to make £7.6 million in cuts, was recently forced to close its maternity ward on 16 separate occasions.

It’s really not fair on patients or medical staff here

TaxPayers’ Alliance

The previous year Reading’s Royal Berkshire Hospital had to shut 30 times. In Banbury, Oxon, a team of doctors, midwives and special care baby unit nurses have been replaced by a single midwife and assistant.

Tory MP Peter Bone last night said: “My concern is that this money if it’s being spent overseas should come from the £13billion foreign aid budget not from health money.”

John O’Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “The NHS should be focusing all of its resources on the most essential services before thinking about spending money elsewhere.

“It’s really not fair on patients or medical staff here to have budgets allocated to other countries whilst local hospitals are in need.

“Most taxpayers would expect this kind of spending to come directly out of the foreign aid budget.”

The film star set up the Maddox-Pitt-Jolie Foundation in 2003 to help communities in the north east region of Battambang, Cambodia.

It was named after her son Maddox, now 17, who she adopted in Cambodia in 2002.

Health Education England said: “These staff give up their salaries to go and work in resource-poor settings where they provide huge benefit to local healthcare systems.

“In exchange they bring back new skills in leadership and other areas that help them care for patients better. While volunteering, their employing trust can use their salary locally for other staff.”The NHS Thames Valley and Wes𝑠e𝑥 Leadership Academy said: “Volunteers work with the local health team and are supported to use quality improvement methods to help make sustainable improvements in healthcare and to develop their own leadership skills.”

Paid NHS ‘volunteers’ sent to the MJP Foundation in Cambodia to gain ‘valuable experience and expertise’

Humanitarian and Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie is worth an estimated £120 millionCredit: Getty – Contributor