NHS pay offs: Enough to make you sick

Louise Bours, North West UKIP MEP

NHS bosses should hang their heads in shame for wasting over £100million on golden handshakes for senior managers that could have been used to hire thousands of new nurses, according to Ukip’s new Health spokesman.

The comments follow the publication of official figures that show in the last financial year the NHS paid £197million to the 6,330 staff it made redundant.

237 managers were given pay offs between £100,000 and £150,000 each, while another 83 pocketed between £150,000 and £200,000 each and 40 of the NHS top-brass got in excess of £200,000 each.

The most an employer is forced to pay to make an employee redundant is £13,920, though some chose to pay more.

UKIP MEP and Health spokesman, Louise Bours said: “This is utterly outrageous, to the extent that it makes you wonder if those at the top of the NHS really care about patients at all.

“As a body funded by the public, those running the NHS should not pay more redundancy than the statutory cap.

“It is the public who employ the managers and if the government consulted them, they would find we want as much money to go on frontline services as possible, and as little as possible on redundancy packages.

“These gilt edged redundancy payments have cost £108million more than they should have, that’s enough money to hire over 7,500 extra nurses.

“Who in their right mind wouldn’t opt for the extra nurses, given the choice?”

In the last four years the bill for inflated redundancy payments within the NHS has hit nearly £1.6billion, with 4,000 of those receiving the payments being re-hired on the health payroll.

Ms Bours added: “I can’t imagine a hospital porter or a cleaner being given anything over the legal requirement, so why should some executive who doesn’t go anywhere near patients?

“The NHS top brass need to remember who they work for - us.

“It should give the British people the best clinical service possible, free at the point of need. With that in mind, the choice of wasting £108million pounds on golden handshakes or hiring more than 7,500 new nurses is a no-brainer.

“These payoffs are enough to make you literally sick.”