At least 660 NHS managers earned a higher salary in 2009 to 2010 than the Prime Minister, an investigation reveals.
A report in the Sunday Telegraph reveals that David Bennett, who was the interim chief executive of Monitor, the foundation trust regulator, was the highest earning NHS manager on £282,500. The Prime Minister earns £142,500-a-year.
Nearly 50 managers were revealed to be on more than £200,000.
Neil Lloyd, chief executive of NHS Professionals, the internal temp and recruitment agency for the NHS, came second with a salary of £282,500. Ruth Carnall, the chief executive of the London Strategic Health Authority, came third on £277,500.
Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, comes in a modest 29th on £212,500 per annum.
Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, described the findings as a “kick in the guts” for front line staff.
He said: “This exposes some deplorable double standards. At a time when senior managers should have shown leadership, too many accepted rises which are absolutely indefensible.”
Bennett, a former special adviser to Tony Blair and who was recently appointed chairman of Monitor, courted controversy in a recent interview in The Times by suggesting the NHS could be dismantled and compared health services to the utilities industry. The regulator is set to be given wider powers under the Health Bill to promote competition in the NHS.
He is quoted as saying: “I worked for a very long while in lots of different countries in the energy sectors, in power and gas, doing exactly this sort of thing. There’s lots of evidence of benefits being produced…
“It is too easy to say, ‘How can you compare buying electricity with buying healthcare services?’ Of course they are different. I would say…there are important similarities and that’s what convinces me that choice and competition will work in the NHS as it did in those other sectors.
“We, in the UK, have done this in other sectors before. We did it in gas, we did it in power, we did it in telecoms, we’ve done it in rail, we’ve done it in water, so there’s actually 20 years of experience in taking monopolistic, monolithic markets and providers and exposing them to economic regulation.”
At the time, Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, described his comments as “simplistic” and “wrong”.
Read a full listing of salaries.
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This is a bit simplistic. The PM doesn’t only earn £140,000 - he gets a free house in London and acountry residence, free chauffeur, a lifetime,s mega earnings on the speaker circuit, not to mention leucrative private consultancies and no doubt attractive advances on his memoires .
Yes some nhs managers and doctors have a basic salary more than his but so what? Perhaps the PM and other cabinet ministers should come clean about their real incomes.
Interestingly the Times is less vocal about the guy from McKinseys just appointed by Cameron as his “transparency” tsar (?). Salary- £75000 for 6 months. So more than the PM apparently but private sector so that’s ok.