THE temporary finance director paid £47,000 a month by a struggling NHS trust has been relieved of his duties.

Ian Miller was being paid the equivalent to an annual salary of £561,000 despite a Government order to halt the “excessive and indefensible” rates paid on short-term contracts.

Barts Health NHS trust, which has the highest bill for agency doctors and nurses and is forecasting the greatest deficit in the history of the NHS, confirmed that he was no longer working for them.

A spokesman said: “We have previously made clear that we required Ian Miller’s support because he was available immediately for a period of up to six months and had the experience needed to lead the finance department of the largest NHS trust in the country.

“We now have that expertise in-house, and consequently Ian Miller’s short-term contract recently ended.” The trust suggested that Mr Miller’s contract had come to its natural end last week.

However, it said last week his position was approved in February for six months, meaning it was due to end in August.

When speaking to The Daily Telegraph on Sunday evening, Mr Miller, 49, made no reference in a detailed discussion to his position being recently terminated.

An investigation by this newspaper revealed Barts – which last year spent £80million on agency doctors and nurses – started paying £46,800 a month to Mr Miller earlier this year. Figures for the last financial year show £78,000 plus VAT was due to the firm Maxentius, of which Mr Miller is a director, for his services in February and March.

In a letter to all NHS trusts, leaked to The Daily Telegraph, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, ordered a clamping down on the practice that allows roving executives to earn up to £600,000 a year.

Meanwhile, Sir Robert Naylor, chief executive of University College London Hospitals, has said the best doctors should be offered more money to stop practising and become NHS managers.

Sir Robert, chair of the Health Service Journal’s inquiry into the future of NHS leadership, told Radio 4’s Today programme: “Our clinicians are some of the brightest people in our society and yet they’ve not been encouraged to become involved in leadership positions.

“There are a number of reasons. They are not incentivised financially to do so. Particularly here in London, clinicians can probably go and earn as much on a Saturday morning in Harley Street as they would get paid for a week working as a clinical leader in a hospital.

“We are saying there are far too many [NHS] organisations and we should significantly reduce that number so we can reward clinicians adequately for coming in to take on these positions.”