NHS trust rehires redundant bosses
Six managers got £1million... and new jobs
A SCANDAL-HIT NHS trust has reemployed six senior managers after spending £1million axing them.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust made them redundant in a £10million cost-cutting exercise.
Yet they are now back working for the service. Health workers yesterday slammed the “crazy waste of money money”. .
The trust st is already spending more than £ 2million llion a year on private ambulances s due to chronic staff shortages, while also handing out luxury vehicles cles to top staff.
In April we revealed it was spending more than £454,000 a year on cars s for executives, with bosses overseeing cuts receiving Jaguars and top-range 4x4s.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has pledged to introduce a cap on pay-outs above £95,000. High earners will also have to repay redundancy money if they return to the public sector within 12 months.
But figures seen by the Sunday People reveal the six unnamed managers received redundancy cash totalling £ 922,984 – an average of more than £150,000 each – then were rehired.
One, a qualified paramedic, earned £50,000 a year as a training official. He is now back at the trust on a similar salary, employed via an agency to train 800 student paramedics hired to cover frontline staff shortages. A former trusttr worker said: “Somebody sanctioned thesethe redundancy payments, even
though th they knew this person would be needed for staff training. It’s a crazy waste of money. Anyone with half a brain should have realised they would need these students and someone to train them up.”
The trust, covering Cambs, Essex, Herts, Beds and East Anglia, said that of the six staff, four are now employed on a casual basis – three as paramedics, one in patient transport. Two others work via outside firms, one as a trainer and one in job evaluation.
Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said: “This is crying out for reform. There needs to be some kind of rule saying when you leave with a substantial payment then return, that payment should be returned.”
In total, £6million in redundancy deals has been handed to senior staff in two years.
A trust spokesman said: “Vast restructure processes during 2014 and early 2015... included reducing spend on agency and interim staff and restructuring of support services and leadership arrangements.
“[This] led to a number of redundancies to reinvest about £ 10million savings in ongoing pay costs into frontline services.”
The latest revelations come amid threats of strikes over ambulance staff shortages.