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Salaries of fat cat NHS chiefs soar
Amy Iggulden, Health Correspondent22.11.07
Spending on NHS bosses in the capital has soared to record levels, new figures reveal.
Salaries for health managers are costing London taxpayers £195 million a year - a rise of £5 million. Bosses of primary care trusts are benefiting from annual incomes averaging more than £100,000 - with even chiefs in charge of trusts reporting losses receiving substantial financial rewards.
The Conservatives, who obtained the figures, today accused the Government of allowing spending on "fat cat" managers to rise unchecked. Shadow health minister Mike Penning told the Standard: "Fat cat managers are being paid six-figure sums but taxpayers are not getting value for money.
"The Government has allowed spending on management to spiral out of control. They're all supplying identical services yet there is a huge variation in what different PCTs are spending."
The picture is similar across the country with trusts in England spending a total of £1,118 million over the last year, a £26 million rise. But in London the spend per head on chief executives, chairmen and finance directors was more than anywhere else.
Six out of the 10 highest spending health trusts are in the capital including Kensington & Chelsea as well as Westminster. Kingston is also among the highest spenders and its costs have increased by a quarter over the last year.
The average cost to the taxpayer is now equivalent to £24 a head. In some cases, PCTs have hired more managers but this has failed. PCTs have been criticised for financial mismanagement after overcommissioning services from hospitals which left them millions in the red.
The Government cut the number of NHS trusts by nearly half from 303 to 152 in a bid to make £250 million savings and reduce administration costs by at least 15 per cent.
But more than half of London trusts have failed to curb spending on bosses and admin. Hillingdon's management bill has risen by almost half despite being in financial debt. Yet Hilary Pickles, their executive of public health, was paid more than £125,000 last year.
Kingston, which also has a cash deficit, spent the equivalent of £34.67 per head. Chief executive Paul Holmes, who left in November last year, was on a salary of £115,000.
NHS London said it was unable to comment on the figures but said the numbers of management staff on the payroll had reduced.
Reader views (3)
My salary like many of my collegues were frozen three years ago in the NHS due to Agenda for change. Consultants salary have rose by 27% in the last year and so have executives. Lower paid staff suffer still, the situation worse than before the change. I feel conned by the government and demoralised as result.
- Keith Stephens-Borg, Barnstaple
These salaries are out of proportion to results achieved in the public's interest. Out here, the Health Care Commission has issued a warning letter stating that patient complaint is not being investigated properly and those who do complain along the correct channels are not protected from bullying. The PCT has responded by issuing a statement informing the public they can be assured that all complaints will be handled by the Chief Executive and associated team, the problem being it is them who has been receiving the complaint. Still the same complained about medical facility is bypassed by those living very rurally in favour of casualty and 24 hour walk in clinics, where infectious diseases have to be diagnosed adding to the bed blocking problem.
- Mary, Suffolk Coastal
These overpaid 'fatcats' seem to be paid in many instances to cover up bad practice, where we live, our local chief executive has been issued a warning letter by the Health Care Commission with regard to 'lack of patient complaint investigation and lack of care taken with patients being bullied after they have made serious complaints about real concerns which show a marked pattern in a given area going back years'. Her solution to offer to review every complaint which reaches her... however that is where very serious complaints have been going for years, meanwhile patients continue to be struck off, continue to bypass a particular medical facility in a rural community, clogging up the 24 hours walk in clinic and casualty which is overstretched and also taking in infectious diseases like scarlet fever and chickenpox adding to the pressure of extra infections being passed on to vulnerable children, however of course the salaries remain high and protected at all case at the expense of the public. Leaving people to prefer panorama or despatches as a preferred complaint route. some die in casualty having never received even basic palliative care via the normal route for diagnosis in a community.
- Mary Foord-Brown, Woodbridge Suffolk
