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NHS chief gets 5% pay rise... that's double what her nurses are given
Anna Davis04.12.08
The capital's top health chief has been awarded an inflation-busting pay rise of five per cent.
Ruth Carnall, chief executive of NHS London, received her increase as nurses had to make do with a 1.9 per cent pay rise.
The increase also comes despite a warning from the Department of Health that most NHS staff should get rises of only two per cent this year.
Ms Carnall's pay is now £252,000 a year - a package which soars to £287,280 when pension contributions are taken into account. She is now the highest-paid regional NHS boss in the country.
Shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien said: "Why is it that London's NHS bosses think it is acceptable to award themselves inflation-busting pay rises while hard-working nurses are being forced to take what is effectively a pay cut?"
The health service is expected to be forced to limit spending - potentially leading to service cuts next year. It is feared that in 2009/10, trusts will only be allowed to use £400million of the £1.7billion surplus they are expected to generate this year.
There have been warnings that after 2010 the NHS should expect its funding to grow by between 1.5 and two per cent, compared with the 6.7 per cent previously expected.
In 2006/07 Ms Carnall's salary was £240,000. She is one of 26 regional NHS bosses paid £150,000 or more.
A spokesman for NHS London said Ms Carnall's total pay rise - including a performance-related increase - was five per cent. Her basic pay rise was 1.3 per cent. He added: "This reflects the fact that in London over the past two years the NHS has gone from deficit to surplus.
"Ruth Carnall is responsible for the performance of 31 primary care trusts, 24 acute trusts, three mental health trusts and London Ambulance Service."
Before NHS London was formed there were five chief executives of five separate strategic health authorities in London, he said: "Effectively Ruth is now doing the job that five people were previously employed to do." Geoff Martin, spokesman for campaign group London Health Emergency, said: "A lot of staff at the sharp end of services will be very angry when they see the bumper salaries for senior bureaucrats. Staff are being asked to accept below-inflation rises."
Last year NHS chief executive David Nicholson said pay increases of two per cent were "appropriate for most of our staff". But he came under fire himself last month when it emerged he won a pay rise five times greater than that forced on nurses.
* Ruth Carnall holds ultimate responsibility for the health of 7.2 million Londoners. She controls an annual budget of £1.5 billion at NHS London and also oversees the £11.6 billion allocated to primary care trusts for patient care each year. When she joined NHS London in 2006, the service was in a debt crisis with a deficit of £174 million. It now has a surplus of almost £300 million. This year GPs have criticised plans for London's first supersurgeries, but she fought back, declaring an end to “crappy end-of terrace” surgeries that are not fit for purpose. The 52-year-old has worked in the NHS for more than 25 years.
Reader views (12)
Ruth Carnall, can you explain why a nurse at Colchester General Hospital is assigned 18 patients, when they are trained to provide duty of care to no more than 8 patients. How can we ever consider holding them accountable for failing to adhere to proceedures??
- Moses, London
If she is doing a good job and providing value for money then she deserves her salary. As for the pay rise, it should be equal to that of a nurse so 5% is too high.
Those who are jealous of her £287,000 salary, if you think you can do better for less money then apply for a job as a health service manager. Otherwise just get a life.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
Can we have disclosure of the salaries spent on non medical staff employed by the NHS and the salaries spent on medical staff
- Patricia, LONDON
No wonder that Carnall looks so smug - I would on earning that wedge. Trouble is that it would be too expensive to sack her - she'd screw the NHS for everything she could get - so the poor old Londoners are lumbered again. There's no link between salary and performance so why are those making these appointments too thick to appreciate that fact. These folk just know how to work the appointment system but they are bloody useless when it comes to proper work and benefitting the people they are supposed to serve. Their only strength is antagonsing workers and patients.
- John, Leighton Buzzard, Beds
Goverments way of closing the gap between rich and poor.
- Dave Potter, london
Ruth Carnall, as history has proven, is not doing her job and therefore she should be fired. No radical changes are visible. She is an incompetant. Simple as that.
- Wq (Ex Pat), Frankfurt, Germany
I work for the NHS and think this above inflation rise is a disgrace. CEs should not be paid over a quarter million pounds a year in salary, when hard-working nursing staff get paid a pittance and only received a 2% rise.
- Yvonne, Doncaster, UK
End these fat cat salaries, bonuses and perks paid for by the taxpayer. Lots of Londoners are losing their jobs and this woman is being given a 5% payrise, she is not worth it. Please name the people who awarded her our money. Londoners do not want any privatised NHS supersurgeries.
- Maggie, London
The NHS is so inefficient that any fool can make substantial savings with no pain for anyone.
It doesn't need a highly paid Civil Sevant with gold-plated Pension to be awarded more than the workers.
- Cap, london
No wonder we have to have service cuts when we are paying a whopping salary like that!!
- Anon, London
Regretably when these type of people get to this level they lose all touch with the real world where jobs are being lost every day of the week. If she was really as good at her job as she is supposed to be, she would understand how inappropriate it is for to receive even any salary increase.
- Patrick Griffin, Dalston, London
Is it any wonder the budget deficit is as big as it is.
Funded by you and I out ofg our taxes. Also, why were five people employed in the first palce to work she is now doing????
- Jeremy E, London
