We DID create £240k job for shamed exec, admits NHS
A SCANDAL-hit NHS trust admitted yesterday that it created a special £240,000-a-year job for its chief executive when she had to resign.
Katrina Percy, 43, quit as head of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust last week after criticism at its failure to investigate more than 1,200 unexplained deaths.
But a new ‘ advisory’ role was created especially for her with the same £240,000 pay deal even though she will have much less responsibility.
Last night MPs said Miss Percy’s appointment to the position was ‘a terrible error of judgment’ and demanded she be dismissed from her new post.
Her generous pay package comes despite the trust having a deficit of £5.8million at the end of the last financial year.
It has boosted the pay bill for executive directors, excluding pensions, by almost 50 per cent over the past two years. At the same time, the number of nurses, midwives and health visitors has been cut.
Southern Health’s chairman, Tim Smart, admitted that Miss Percy’s new job was not advertised and she was the only candidate for it. But he denied it was a ‘fix’, claiming she was ‘ uniquely qualified’ for the tailor- made 12-month role offering advice to GP practices in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
However, the trust’s recruitment and selection policy, published in December 2015, states: ‘ All trust vacancies must be advertised and managed through NHS Jobs (the national e-recruitment website) except where there is an organisational change process in place.’
Miss Percy’s resignation followed the publication of an inquiry last year which found that Southern Health bosses failed to investigate up to 1,259 ‘unexplained’ deaths because they were not deemed serious enough. Tory MP Nicholas Soames described her new appointment as ‘ a grotesque misuse of public funds’. He added: ‘The whole thing is a catastrophe. It’s been incredibly badly handled.
‘It’s an insult to all the patients and it will infuriate people to see such a terrible waste of money.
‘She should be dismissed now. If she’s so good, she’ll get a job anywhere else at a salary that befits her talent.’
Former health minister Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk, added: ‘This was a terrible error of judgment.
‘Appointing someone to a highly paid role without advertising the role and allowing others to apply goes against all good practice.
‘More significantly, it shows a stunning lack of empathy with the families of those vulnerable patients whose unexpected deaths were not properly investigated.’
Dr Maureen Rickman, whose sister died while in Southern Health’s care, called the move ‘completely outrageous’.
She told the BBC: ‘She should be axed from Southern Health altogether, end of. There shouldn’t be a sideways move, that shouldn’t be an option at all.’
Mark Aspinall, who resigned from the trust’s council of governors in April, said Miss Percy should have taken responsibility for the failings ‘a long time ago’.
He told Radio 4’s Today pro- gramme: ‘The idea the role has been created purely to move her sideways seems very strange.’
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, which cares for 45,000 patients with mental health needs and learning difficulties, has been under intense scrutiny since last year following a series of damning reports. An inquiry in December found it failed to investigate up to 1,259 ‘unexplained’ deaths over four years. This was blamed on a ‘failure of leadership’.
In April, an investigation by the Care Quality Commission warned that patients were still being put at risk as staff were not learning from their mistakes.
Further concerns were raised about Miss Percy in July when it emerged the trust paid millions to firms run by former colleagues.
Miss Percy, who has a pension pot worth at least £481,000 after 16 years of NHS service, had repeatedly refused to resign,
Mr Smart said her employment with the trust will stop after 12 months as her new role is finite.
‘Completely outrageous’