When the Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust was awarded Foundation status it must have brought a smile to the twelve managers who, contrary to the national trend, have enjoyed a salary increase of over 30% as a result.
According to the Express & Star the combined salaries of a dozen managers at Black Country hospitals jumped by £110,000 over night, with some salaries increasing by as much as £20,000.
The paper revealed that between April and September 2008 to total wage bill stood at £295,000, but by the period between October 2008 and March 2009 it’d jumped to £405,000.
One councillor, Steve Waltho, who sits on the Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust denounced these excessive rises:
“In all honesty I think senior directors in public organisations are very much overpaid,” he said. “Senior consultants are there on the front line saving lives and if anything these directors should be paid on a par with them and no more.”
And who can argue with that? This is yet another example of an inappropriate and disproportionate pay rise at the expense of taxpayers, many of whom are still suffering the effects of recession.
They may shout about ‘extra responsibilities’ or talk about ‘significant changes’ in the role until the cows come home, but as businesses all over the country are forced to downsize and managers across the spectrum are having to shoulder a heavier workload for less pay, I doubt such excuses will prompt much sympathy.
The main difference in the director’s role (that one Chief Executive uses to justify his hefty pay rise) seems to be their personal responsibility to taxpayers for decisions made by the Trust, so it’s with some irony that we’re essentially having to pay extra in order to hold these executives accountable in the spirit of fairness and transparency.