Health chief ousted after cash scandal still getting £120k salary

THE former boss of a crisis-hit health board is still receiving a six-figure salary despite being removed by SNP ministers.

Lesley McLay has been on sick leave since Health Secretary Shona Robison replaced the management team at NHS Tayside, after charity cash was used for day-to-day services.

Health bosses yesterday said Miss McLay was told her ‘accountable officer status would be removed’ – then was signed off sick after visiting her doctor the next morning.

They said she could be offered another job at the health board when she is ready to return.

She continues to receive her annual salary of £120,000£125,000 and it is estimated she has earned about £10,000 since signing off on April 6. The details were confirmed by NHS Scotland chief executive Paul Gray to Holyrood’s public audit committee yesterday.

He said Miss McLay’s removal as chief executive ‘doesn’t cause her to cease to be an employee of NHS Tayside’ and that when she can return ‘we’ll agree with her what her future employment status should be’.

Mr Gray added: ‘If you are an employee of the NHS and are taken through a disciplinary process and dismissed, that is quite different from being told your accountable officer status is being taken away.’

But Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘It’s hard to see how anyone can justify this when money is so tight and the health board is performing so poorly.’

NHS Tayside said it could not comment on ‘matters relating to individual members of staff’.

‘Hard to see how this is justified’