Ambulance trusts ‘pay millions to executives’

CASH-STRAPPED AMBULANCE trusts are forking out millions of pounds to cover the “eye-watering” salaries and pensions of top executives, a union has claimed.

Research by the GMB found that in a single year, more than £11m was spent on top executive remuneration at Britain’s 12 ambulance trusts, enough to recruit hundreds more paramedics.

One ambulance trust, South East Coast, paid its acting chief executive £575,000 in salary and pension in 2016-17, the GMB said, while at Yorkshire Ambulance Service, five top bosses were said to have received up to £800,000 between them that year. The combined spend would pay more than 300 paramedics’ salaries for a year, the union said.

GMB national secretary, Rehana Azam, said many ambulance staff were locked into a three-year pay deal that did not given them a real-terms wage increase.

She added: “Our ambulance trusts are running on empty. They’ve no money to hire and train the staff they need to save lives, they’re relying on increasingly old equipment and demand on their scarce resources is rocketing.

“Eye-watering salaries for bosses while ambulance staff suffer is not good enough. We need fairness in NHS pay now.”

Health service bosses questioned the GMB’s research, saying in some cases accumulated pension contributions were included in the salary figures. NHS England said the number of paramedics rose by 48 per cent from September 2009 to October 2018.

A spokesman added: “At the same time the number of people classed as managers has fallen from 685 to 633.”

A Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust spokesperson said: “We are committed to investing in our frontline services and we have boosted our workforce by recruiting over 300 extra operational staff in 2018-19. We have also made investment in our fleet, introducing 62 new ambulances.”