Pensions scandal of NHS fatcats

National Wealth Service As retiring frontline staff struggle to make ends meet, their former bosses hit the pension jackpot

THE number of NHS fat cats retiring on six-figure pensions has soared 700% in just five years.

The huge increase in lavish, taxpayer-funded pension pots made to highly-paid NHS executives would pay for nearly 23,000 frontline nurses.

Incredibly the “obscene” sums are being given to boardroom big hitters who, in many cases, leave the health service, cash in their pension pots and then go back to work.

The scale of the pay-outs make a mockery of the average £6,000-a-year NHS pensions most workers receive.

“Clearly the NHS needs to wake up and smell the coffee,” said Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

In 2009-10 just 18 pensions of more than £100,000 a year were paid to health service high-earners.

But six-figure pay-outs were made to 143 workers last year despite the NHS facing its worst financial crisis in living memory.

The figures, published by the NHS Pension Scheme following a freedom of information request, also show 1,925 workers were given generous pensions of more than £75,000 more than four times as many as in 2009-10.

Meanwhile, the number on £50,000-plus retirement deals has more than doubled in the same period.

The revelations come at a time when health chiefs face an £8 billion black hole in NHS funding.

Despite the need for huge savings, NHS managers pocketed £35 million in pay rises last year.

It has also emerged that some received more than £1m thanks to tax avoidance schemes.

Almost 50 were paid more than £400,000, while the average chief executive’s salary rose to £185,255 £40,000 more than the Prime Minister earns.

Many NHS executives have been using a loophole to take out massive lump sums early by quitting their jobs for a day and working part-time for a month before returning to work full-time on the same huge salaries.

Ironically, the scheme is designed to help low-paid NHS nurses who are struggling to survive on their pensions alone return to work part-time.

Barrie Brown, of Unite, said the average NHS pension is just £6,000 for men and even less for women.

He said union members, which includes health visitors, paramedics, hospital porters, school nurses and healthcare scientists, could only dream of pocketing the lavish pensions of their bosses.

“Our members are now expected to work longer, pay more and receive less pension with the new NHS pension scheme the Government implemented on April 1,” he said.

“Senior staff who receive these very high pensions can opt to retire early with reduced but very good pensions. The majority of staff who prop up the NHS wouldn’t have that option.”

Hospital campaigner Sam Zair, whose 89-year-old mother Bernice was failed by the NHS, last night hit out at the huge payments.

Mrs Zair, a dementia sufferer, had been admitted to hospital with a water infection but died of pneumonia after allegedly being left on a mattress on the hospital floor.

County Councillor Mr Zair, of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, said: “It is an absolutely obscene amount of money being paid out to people at the top of the NHS.

“It just goes to show that the money going into the NHS is not going where it is needed most.

“I wonder whether patient care is secondary to these people.”

Taxpayers’ Alliance campaigner Isaby said the money could have paid for an army of nursing staff.

“Pensions of this extraordinary size are a thing of the past in the private sector because they’re totally unaffordable,” he said.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be picking up the tab for lucrative pensions at a time when we’re trying to reduce a £90 billion deficit.

“Every single penny of taxpayers’ money spent on the NHS needs to go into front-line services and patient care, not lining the pockets of retirees.”

Liz Emerson, co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation think-tank, said the new Tory Government needs to cap “unsustainable” pensions.

She said the massive increase in six-figure sums “dispels the myth that we are all in it together”.

“The current public sector pension liability is almost £1.7 trillion in the red,” she said.

“Young private sector workers, overburdened by student debt, high rents and poor pay, may well start to question why they should have to shoulder the burden of these over-generous fat-cat pensions.”

Labour shadow health minister Jamie Reed said a probe is needed “to ensure fairness from bottom to top in the NHS”.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “It is vital that every penny of taxpayers’ money is spent to achieve the best outcomes for patients.

“The Government has already made significant reforms to the NHS pension scheme to save £800m a year. This includes linking pensions to career average earnings, rather than final salary and a higher retirement age.

Row over salaries of NHS top brass

It has been revealed that top NHS nurses have pocketed pay of more than £400,000 a year at a time front-line staff faced a pay freeze. Nursing unions reacted with fury following revelations bosses were earning as much in a month as their struggling members were in an entire YEAR. One nursing leader quit for 24 hours unlocking a huge £220,000 lump-sum pay-out before returning to work the next day, earning as much as Prime Minister David Cameron.

The massive sums were revealed in an audit of NHS accounts to examine the true scale of top-level pay.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has vowed to investigate the findings and end the abuse of NHS funds.

The Royal College of Nursing said its members would be “disgusted” at the pay gap between themselves and their bosses at a time of financial crisis in the NHS.