| FAT CATS @ SCARBOROUGH & N.E. YORK'S NHS TRUST BOARD | |
The NHS came in for special criticism with 82 of the most highly paid earning on average £181,956 each, by comparison a nurse earns around £22,000 and bearing in mind the nurses pay rise will be capped at around 2%. Also included in the report was the fact that we now have several thousand unnamed GP's earning in excess of £150,000 annually. One item in the report made it clear that some of these high earners woefully underperformed or failed in their duties, "There is a complete mismatch between rewards and performance" said Corin Taylor research director at theTaxpayers Alliance she also stated "this list shows that plenty of people have been paid extremely well for poor performance". In relation to the Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust Board we probably don't have the very top earners but when it comes to getting the cream they are still "Fat Cats" costing the Taxpayer in excess of £600 Thousand pounds last year in remuneration alone. Top of the "Fat Cat" list for the Trust Board comes Iain McInnes Chief Executive coming in at a massive £115,000 using the 2006 figures for the Chief Executives pay, other top earners were Dr Ian Holland Medical Director Circa £115,000, followed up by the directors of Finance, human resources, the Chief Nurse and other Executive and non Executive directors earning a whopping great £390,000 between them. It is interesting to note that last year seven Non Executive Directors earned in excess of over £65,000 between them for working a few days a year. At a time when the hospital Trust Board are calling for cuts to staff and services it is really rather ironic that they are one of the main causes of our financial depredation with their "Fat Cat Pay" with over £0.6 Million in remuneration and expenses, it defies belief that they cannot see an easy way to reduce the overall financial crisis by taking less pay and reducing the annual pay increase to zero. If ever there was a case of underperformance and possible failure of duties "This is it" it is also a startling example of people being paid extremely, if not disgustingly, well for poor or no performance. This Trust Board are responsible for some of the most damning criticism against any Trust country wide being in the bottom 5% for quality of service and use of resources being classed as "Weak" on both counts according to the Health Care Commission, recently the public have lost all confidence in the Trust's ability to manage our hospital's affairs with the Save Our Hospital Campaigns from Scarborough and Bridlington calling for the resignation of the whole Trust Board, add to this that councils county wide have given them a vote of "No Confidence" for their ineptitude. How much longer do we have to put up with this bureaucratic, unelected, unaccountable, inept "Fat Cat Quango" destroying our hospitals and services, surely all the people cannot be wrong all the time and all the Trust Board ever do is brush aside any adverse comments by blaming someone else. Mick Pilling John Palethorpe | |