London NHS managers' £200k pay-offs

At least four NHS managers in London were given pay-offs of more than £200,000 as part of the Government’s flagship health reforms, it emerged today.

Primary care trusts dished out millions of pounds in redundancy payments in the capital before they were abolished this spring.

Some of the staff are believed to have been given six-figure “golden boomerang” pay-outs - as they were swiftly re-employed within the NHS afterwards.

Details of the staggeringly-high payments were disclosed in annual reports for primary care trusts for 2012/13 being published now.

They showed that two NHS managers in Hillingdon, one in Kensington and Chelsea, and one in Lambeth received redundancy payments of more than £200,000.

Some Health bosses in Southwark and Westminster got pay-outs of between £150,000 and £200,000.

While more managers in Wandsworth, Westminster, Lewisham, Kensington & Chelsea, Bromley and Brent were handed exit packages of between £100,000 and £150,000.

“It will be galling for nurses across London who have lost their jobs to see the sickening scale of these pay-outs,” said shadow health secretary Andy Burnham. “The Government must disclose which of London’s NHS managers received these pay-offs - cover-up is not an option.”

But health minister Dr Dan Poulter hit back, saying the Coalition was having to foot a big one-off bill to “dismantle Labour’s bloated bureaucracy”.

“That’s because manager numbers and wages rose so quickly on Labour’s watch, and their ridiculously lax redundancy rules tied our hands on excessive pay-offs,” he added.

A Downing Street spokesman said David Cameron wanted more restraint on pay-outs.

He said: “There are proposals to cap redundancy pay outs for senior managers and claw back all or part of the payment if they return to work for the NHS within a year of being made redundant.”