Oxfordshire tycoon Sir Richard Branson is advising the Government on how to make hospitals more consumer-friendly, writes Alan Carter.

Executives from Virgin Airlines are to spend three months visiting hospitals to see how improvements could be made.

Their brief is to advise on issues such as better food, cleaner accommodation, more privacy for patients and to assess how polite doctors and nurses are.

Sir Richard, who lives in Mill End, Kidlington, is understood to have agreed to the review at a "cost price" of about 35,000. Health Secretary Alan Milburn, who was due to make a formal announcement today, said: "When people get into hospital they want to know that the basics are right, that the wards are clean, the food is good, the care is there. That is why I've asked Sir Richard Branson's award-winning group to advise us on how hospitals can be made consumer friendly."

Sir Richard's foray into the medical world was criticised by Peter Hawker, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants' committee.

He said he had recently been stuck for 45 minutes on a broken-down Virgin commuter train in Buckinghamshire.

"Branson is still using the same old trains that can suffer problems we're still using the same over-stretched hospitals," he said.

"I am all for improving services to patients, but we need real resources, not an exercise in spin," he said.