Last week we revealed how `non executive' directors sitting on the Board of Salford Royal Foundation Trust are picking up over £13,000 a year for attending meetings. Now we can reveal that six non executive directors at the separate Salford NHS Trust receive almost £1000 per meeting.
These non exec directors are paid £7882 a year, and last year's Board papers show that there were eight meetings. That's almost £1000 per meeting for non execs including…
• Paul Newman - a highly paid member of the executive team at Peel Holdings (Media) Ltd…
• Brian Wroe - recently pensioned Assistant Director of Salford Council's Community Services which carries a salary between £65-£72,000 a year. One of Brian Wroe's last acts before he left the Council in March was to recommend Salford's Community Committees not to fund the Salford Star.
• Councillor Joe Murphy – who picked up a further £23,320 in basic councillor and `special' allowances during the year 2008/9.
Minutes from the last Board meeting of the NHS Salford Trust show that there is a target of £20million savings in the service, including £4million savings during this financial year, and £2.3million savings in following years.
Leaked details in the Manchester Evening News showed 750 jobs to be axed at Salford Royal Hospital, involving 10% cuts in primary, community, acute and mental health sectors by 2013, and 15% cuts in acute and in-patient mental health care by 2013.
Meanwhile, Government figures show an initial capital cost of £190million for the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) redevelopment of Salford Royal Hospital – which will end up costing £620million by the end of its 34 year pay back to private investors. Next year payment instalments begin at £11.8million, rising to over £15million a year by 2021 and over £25million per year after 2040.
Elsewhere in Salford, while a new doctors' surgery was desperately needed in Blackfriars, the cost, worked out by the General Practice Committee of the BMA, was reported as being four times that of existing practices…£400,000 a year.
Another new surgery, Canalside, was delayed, according to NHS minutes last November, due to "on-going issues between NHS Salford and the GPs based at Monton Medical Centre over the current lease arrangements". While the walk-in centre is due to open `this financial year', the full practice still has no definite open date…
Will the costs of privately built NHS buildings have an adverse affect on health services? Is it right to pay non executive directors almost £1000 a meeting to a background of NHS staff cuts?
Ordinary people from the community who sit on the Council of Governors for the Salford Royal Foundation Trust, for instance, do not get paid.
Salford NHS responded:
"The Non Executive Directors referred to all have strong connections to Salford and have made important contributions to the City. Along with other Board members, they play an important role in scrutinising and monitoring how NHS Salford promotes health in Salford and funds healthcare services to more than 230,000 people in Salford."
See update 22nd April 2010 here
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