NHS bosses get £10m a year... to make cuts

THE NHS is paying managers nearly £10million a year to save money by cutting services. Health trusts are drawing up controversial plans that recommend the closure of A&E units, maternity wards and some hospitals.

Figures obtained by the British Medical Association show that 150 executives – some on six-figure salaries – have been hired to oversee the proposals.

They include operations managers, communications executives, general administrators and financial analysts, who together earn £8.5million a year.

Health trusts are shelling out a further £1.1 million on private consultants.

The BMA obtained the figures through Freedom of Information requests to clinical commissioning groups.

BMA chairman Dr Mark Porter said: ‘With the NHS at breaking point, doctors and patients will be horrified to see millions being spent on another layer of bureaucracy to deliver these controversial plans. The NHS needs more GPs, junior doctors and consultants. There is nothing sustainable or transformational about creating another costly team of managers while staff on the frontline struggle and patients suffer as a result.’