94 NHS fat cats bagged six-figure payoffs last year… costing taxpayers at least £12.3million
The overall bill could have paid for 15,000 cataract operations or 2,200 hip replacements
A STAGGERING 94 NHS fat cats bagged six-figure golden goodbyes as they left health quangos last year - costing taxpayers at least £12.3 million.
Despite the worst NHS cash crisis in history and a £160k cap on health service payoffs, 13 trousered lump sums bigger than £200,000.
They included NHS Development Trust Authority boss David Flory who walked away with £410,000 on top of his £205,000-a-year salary.
A further 81 got jumbo exit payments of more than £100,000, an investigation by The Sun found.
The overall bill could have paid for 15,000 cataract operations or 2,200 hip replacements instead – sparking fury.
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “It is frankly sickening to see people get exit payments in the hundreds of thousands of pounds as patients suffer and services are being cut back.
“These NHS chiefs need to remember who they work for - the public.”
Taxpayers’ Alliance director John O’Connell added: “Patients who missed out on vital drugs or treatment will be astounded that millions of pounds of their cash was dished on such massive pay-outs.”
Ministers have banned six-figure goodbye deals in most of the public sector but the limit for NHS staff is higher at £160,000.
RELATED STORIES
Despite that, lump sums worth more than £200,000 were handed out by NHS England which oversees budgets and planning, NICE which regulates medicines, and Mr Flory’s former quango which has been rolled in with another.
Whitehall sources said the cap-busting lump sums were paid out under old contracts which could not be changed.
The other bodies which gave out payments over £100,000 were nanny state lecturers Public Health England, skills body Health Education England, NHS Blood and Transplant which manages donations, and the NHS Business Services Authority.
The largesse was revealed in analysis of annual reports and accounts for 2015-16.
All of the quangos said they were redundancy or severance payments due to money-saving cuts.
A spokesman for NHS England, which ran up costs of at least £9.1 million with its 71 six-figure deals, said: “In order to achieve planned reductions in NHS England’s running costs, a number of posts were removed from the organisational structure during 2014/15 and 2015/16, and associated contractual severance costs were then incurred.
“NHS England operates robust internal controls in respect of such matters and these contractual severance payments were subject to full external oversight, scrutiny and approval by Department of Health.”
The Department of Health said tough new rules had also been put in place to end the NHS merry-go-round – with bosses forced to hand payoffs back if they take new jobs.