NHS trust rehires bosses it gave almost £1m in pay-offs

AN AMBULANCE trust has been criticised over its decision to allegedly rehire six senior managers after spending £922,984 making them redundant.

The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust is said to have paid an average of more than £150,000 in redundancy to each of the staff, a Freedom of Information request showed.

One paramedic is believed to have returned to help prepare student paramedics in case of staff shortages. His estimated £50,000 salary is understood not to have changed although he is now employed via an agency. The others who were rehired have been done so on a casual basis or via outside firms. A former worker told the Sunday

People the payments were a “crazy waste of money” and went on to claim: “Somebody sanctioned these redundancy payments even though they knew this person [the paramedic] would be needed for staff training.”

Dia Chakravarty, political director at The TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is absolutely ludicrous that taxpayers pick up the tab for generous redundancy packages only to see those who have been let go rehired soon after.”

The Department for Communities and Local Government has previously pledged to cap “exit payments” for public sector workers at £95,000. The cap is set to be introduced by the autumn.

A trust spokesman said restructuring in 2014 and 2015 included “reducing spend on agency and interim staff, and restructuring of support services and leadership arrangements”.

They added: “[This] led to a number of redundancies to reinvest about £10 million savings in ongoing pay costs into frontline services.”