West Midlands hospital chief executives given pay rises of up to £10,000

An investigation into senior directors' pay packets unveiled £35 million in increases across the country despite unprecedented pressures on NHS spending.

An audit found some bosses in England and Wales enjoyed pay hikes of six per cent, well above those of frontline staff.

And annual accounts show that bosses of hospitals in Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley jumped into higher pay bands worth up to £10,000 extra a year.

David Loughton, chief executive of the Royal Wolverhampton Trust which runs New Cross Hospital and Cannock Hospital, was paid a salary of between £210,000 and £215,000 last year up from a £205,000 and £210,000 band. Medical director Jonathan Odum was paid between £130,000 and £135,000 up from the £125,000 and £130,000 scale.

At Walsall Manor, chief executive Richard Kirby was paid between £150,000 and £155,000, while former chief operating officer Jayne Tunstall was paid between £105,000 and £110,000. This compares to £145,00-£150,000 and £100,000-£105,000 respectively the year before.

At the Dudley Group, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, chief executive Paula Clarke was paid salary of between £180,000 and £185,000, up from £175,000 and £180,000.

At Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, chief executive Toby Lewis was paid between £180,000 and £185,000 during his first year at the trust. And at the University Hospitals of North Midlands Trust, which runs Stafford Hospital, chief executive Mark Hackett was paid between £160,000 and £165,000 in his first 12 months.

Sue James, chief executive of Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, formerly the boss at Walsall Manor, reportedly netted a £155,000 payout by using a loophole where she 'retired' for 24 hours before taking up the same job again.

Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said Mrs James was allowed to withdraw her pension early under rules of the NHS pension scheme.

An investigation found some NHS executives in England earned more than £1 million last year, while directors at a handful of the worst-performing hospitals received pay packages of up to £5,000 a day.

A total of 47 hospital bosses pocketed more than £400,000 last year - putting them in the same pay league as top City traders.

Nearly 1,000 NHS bosses now earn £100,000 or more a year when their pension contributions are taken into account - all funded by the taxpayer.

Despite the funding crisis, the number of bosses with pay packages worth more than the Prime Minister's rose by 30 per cent last year to nearly 600.

The average chief executive in England now takes home a salary alone of £185,255 - far higher than the Prime Minister's salary of £142,500.

Last year, the Government decided not to accept a pay review body recommendation for a one per cent increase for all NHS staff working in England.

The £35million could have paid for more than 1,300 new nurses.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "People who do a good job for patients should be paid fairly, but the NHS is a public service and too often high executive pay has been awarded as a matter course, not because of exceptional performance."

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: "This is an illustration of a Government that's got its priorities wrong on the NHS.

"We have seen senior pay rising above inflation, when staff have been denied a basic pay rise. Those staff are working flat-out day after day. This explains why morale is just so devastatingly low in the NHS at the moment."

Liberal Democrat health minister Norman Lamb added: "NHS frontline staff will rightly feel that this situation is unfair. It is right to have an investigation so that these contracts are looked into so that we can make the best use of taxpayers' money."