NHS chiefs on £200,000 want rise for ‘strike stress’

A CALL to boost NHS chiefs’ pay to help them cope with the stress of managing strikes was criticised last night.

Despite chief executives earning an average of £202,277 a year, the body which represents NHS trusts said industrial action was testing the ‘ resilience of NHS leaders’.

As junior doctors today walk out for a tenth time in their pay dispute, tens of thousands more patients are facing more delays to vital care. Yet NHS Providers argue bosses of hospitals, ambulances and other health trusts deserve a pay rise to help them handle the situation, the Mail can reveal.

Last night, critics hit out at the ‘absurd demands’, claiming it was ‘incomprehensible’ at a time so many patients are suffering because of the repeated walkouts. Greg Smith, Tory vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer, said it was another ‘kick in the teeth’ for patients, with 1.33million appointments in England rescheduled since NHS strikes began in December 2022.

He added: ‘It is incomprehensible that NHS bosses think they are the ones in need of a bumper pay rise.

‘The priority has to be getting the waiting lists down – to serve real people in pain, with serious illnesses, in need or surgery or treatment.’ And Caroline Johnson, a Conservative MP and member of the Commons health committee, said rises were not justified for simply ‘doing their jobs’.

She added: ‘The first priority of the NHS and chief executives should be looking after hospitals and getting doctors back to work so that patients can stop suffering from delayed waits, rather than focusing on pay rises.

Experts estimate more than a third of cancer patients and hundreds of thousands with heart problems are facing potentially deadly diagnosis and treatment delays, exacerbated by the current dispute with doctors.

By the end of these latest strikes at 11.59pm on Wednesday, hospital doctors will have taken 44 days or 1,056 hours of industrial action, equating to around 12 per cent of the year.

It has seen more than 1.3million appointments cancelled, with 7.6million waiting to start treatment and millions more facing long waits for continued care.

The submission to the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) – an independent review body which advises the Government – said all NHS workers deserve a ‘meaningful pay rise’ this year.

In it, health bosses claimed salaries must ‘remain competitive enough to attract and retain talented and inclusive leaders’.

Most have ‘lost valuable leadership and managerial headspace’ to prepare for the strikes, it added, and senior managers are under extreme pressure, with record waiting lists, the highest staff turnover on record and a bleak long-term outlook.

The report said the average basic salary for executive director roles had increased by 4.4 per cent between 2021/22 and 2022/23 to £152,763, rising to £167,990 in London. Chief executives had the highest average basic salary of all board members at £202,277, with the lowest being for corporate affairs/governance roles at £118,076.

And some 91 per cent of executives were awarded a ‘ cost of living increase’ in 2022/23 it said, up from 34 per cent the previous year.

It also noted male executive directors are paid on average 10.7 per cent more than female counterparts.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘These absurd demands for more cash for fat cats will be insulting to taxpayers.

‘Chief executives are using the strikes as an excuse for a cash grab to line their own pockets.

‘If they had any shame they’d withdraw this request.’

And Dennis Reed, director of over-60s campaign group Silver Voices, said the ‘whacking increases’ should be spent on providing more frontline staff, adding: ‘Nobody on £200,000 a year needs a pay increase or is experiencing cost of living pressures.’

The SSRB conducts an annual review for all NHS senior health leaders, with ministers deciding whether to implement the recommendations.

NHS Providers’ director of communications Adam Brimelow said it was vital salaries reflect the responsibilities of trust leaders, responsible for £115billion of annual expenditure across England.

He said: ‘Given the complexity and size of the services, budgets and workforces that trust board directors oversee, these rates of pay are both appropriate and competitive given the wider economic environment.

‘It is vital that salaries remain competitive enough to attract and retain talented and inclusive leaders.’

The previous wave of industrial action by junior doctors in January this year saw more than 113,000 hospital appointments disrupted and at least 23,000 staff absent.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: ‘It’s not possible to have one in every ten days affected by strikes for over a year without it having a huge impact.’

A government spokesman said: ‘We have asked the independent pay review bodies to consider and make recommendations on the pay of their workforces and they will be announced this summer as usual.’

‘Using the strikes for a cash grab’