'Fat cat' rise for hospital boss

The chief executive of two hospitals criticised in a government report was one of London's top NHS earners last year.

Dr Nigel Sewell was in charge of the Epsom and St Helier Trust until he stepped down last August. According to figures produced by pay monitoring group Incomes Data Services he was the seventh highest paid hospitals director in the London region with a salary of £115,000.

A report released by the group today shows he received a 5.5 per cent pay increase in the year ending 31 March 2001. In December, Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced a 3.6 per cent increase for all hospital doctors and nurses with extra money for the low paid and those with special duties.

Dr Sewell's increase was awarded in a year that saw the Epsom and St Helier Trust come in for fierce criticism. An inquiry by NHS watchdog the Commission for Health Improvement found a "spiral of decline" that led to the premature discharge of patients, trolley waits of up to 20 hours in A&E, poor cleanliness and other failures.

At St Helier Hospital, death rates among patients receiving emergency surgery were almost twice the national average. The number of patients over 65 who died after emergency hip surgery was 15 per cent. The national average is nine per cent.

A new management team was put in under the present chief executive, John de Braux, who took up his post last September.

The hospital said: "Nigel Sewell's salary, like all directors at the trust, was evaluated by an independent company widely used in the public sector. Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust is one of the largest in the country and the chief executive's salary would reflect this."

The report shows that London hospital and health directors again topped pay league tables with the highest salary of £139,000 awarded to the chief executive of Hammersmith Hospitals' NHS Trust, until recently a post held by John Cooper.

The job was taken over this year by Derek Smith, who was managing director at London Underground. The report also shows the average pay for a trust chief executive in the London region was about £100,000, while the lowest earners, in the West Midlands, received an average of £81,000.

According to the report more than a quarter of NHS trust chief executives received six-figure salaries last financial year, more than the previous year.

The Institute of Healthcare Management which represents chief executives and hospital managers said turnover, at nearly 20 per cent, was probably higher than any other staff group. Stuart Marples, IHM chief executive said: "The survey records an overall pay increase for chief executives of just over 5 per cent, but with wide variations. Over the past year chief executives' responsibilities have increased with mergers and reorganisations and this has been reflected in their salaries."

Trevor Campbell Davis, chief executive of London's recently criticised Whittington Hospital, is at the lower end of the pay scale. He receives about £90.000 a year.