NHS bosses on £250k up 50 per cent
The Health Secretary has opened the door to further pay rises for senior managers
THE number of NHS executives earning at least a quarter of a million pounds has risen by more than 50 per cent in the past year, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal, as it emerged Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has opened the door to a pay rise for the health service’s most senior managers. Official figures show there are now 36 managers at NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups who earn £250,000 or more – some £100,000 more than the Prime Minister’s salary – compared with 23 in 2020.
A senior Conservative MP warned that the “unacceptable” rise was “not what the public expected to be paying for” when Boris Johnson announced a National Insurance increase from April to fund a £36 billion boost for the NHS. The figures are also likely to infuriate medics, after unions criticised a 3 per cent pay rise for staff for being too little and failing to include junior doctors.
It shows a swelling of the ranks of top paid NHS executives, even before the service recruits 42 chief executives of new integrated care boards in England, on an average salary of £223,000.
The figures were revealed as Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, warned the Conservatives will “pay a heavy price” if the 1.25 percentage point rise to National Insurance is not spent “wisely”. Senior Tories fear the issue could be damaging at the next election if money intended to tackle Covid-19 backlogs appears to have been squandered.
In a poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, 48 per cent of people agreed there was too much waste in NHS spending. More than one in three (34 per cent) believed the service will not spend the proceeds of the tax hike efficiently.
Separately, it can be revealed that Mr Javid has written to the Senior Salaries Review Body asking for “a pay recommendation” for very senior managers, or VSMs – defined as executives who sit on trust boards or report to their chief executive – in the NHS for 2022 to 2023.
Mr Javid warned the health service must be able to “recruit, retain and motivate its senior workforce” and urged the body, which provides pay recommendations to ministers, to “please review” proposals being drawn up by “independent consultants at NHS England” for a “revised VSM pay framework”.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph today, however, Mr Hunt urged the Government to demonstrate that it is capable of both funding the health service and reforming it. “Money matters – but without reform it is wasted, as countless governments have found out,” he writes.
Figures provided by Edward Argar, the health minister, in response to a question by Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, show there are now 7,018 NHS managers earning between £80,000 and £129,999. They include 1,071 who earn £130,000-£199,999, 114 who earn £200,000-£249,000, and 36 who are paid £250,000 or more. Overall, the number of VSMs has risen from 944 in 2009 to 2,788 last year, according to the most recent figures. Dr Fox, a former GP, said: “This is not what the public expected to be paying for when a rise in National Insurance was asked of them. When we are asking relatively low-paid people to pay more tax for the NHS, it is unacceptable to see an acceleration in the number of top-paid managers.”
An NHS spokesman said: “Managers are essential to ensuring that the NHS has the right staff, with the right skills to deliver the improvements for patients set out in the Long Term Plan.”