NHS Execs Paid Like Premier League Stars — While Patients Heal Themselves Out of Boredom
Turns out failure pays… handsomely. Over 1,500 NHS bosses are raking in six-figure salaries, with some earning more than the Prime Minister.
Well here we are again. Another day, another headline that makes you want to hurl your TV into the garden and scream into a recycling bin. Because apparently, the NHS… our beloved national institution where you can wait longer for a GP appointment than it takes for Stilton to mature; is absolutely awash with six-figure salaries.
More than 1,500 NHS executives are raking in over £100,000 a year. And 17 of them… seventeen!… are taking home over £300,000. That’s the kind of money that gets you a Bentley, a villa in Palm Beach or approximately three-quarters of a Pret sandwich in the Bicester village outlets. Not that I’m jealous. Much.
But here’s the best bit. Some of these people, well a lot of people in fact, are being paid this obscene amount of money while presiding over some of the worst-performing hospitals in the country. Yes, in the wonderful world of the NHS, failure doesn’t just get you a slap on the wrist… it gets you a pay rise, a bonus and probably a directorship on the board of “strategic biscuit alignment”.
Let’s take the CEO of University Hospitals Plymouth. She pocketed a staggering £397,500 in total remuneration last year. That’s more than the Prime Minister. That’s more than most footballers made in the ’80s. And yet her hospital ranks in the bottom third of the country for A&E performance. You’d get quicker service from a vending machine at Heathrow in a power cut.
Then there’s East Cheshire. Rock bottom of the A&E league tables. Fewer than half of patients are seen within four hours, which incidentally, is still quicker than trying to change a BT broadband package. Yet their Director of “People and Culture” (whatever that means) was paid £367,500. I’m sorry, but for that sort of cash, I expect her to be curing cancer with a magic wand and handing out croissants at the door.
Meanwhile, at Queen Victoria Hospital, top of the performance table, running like a Swiss watch… the chief executive earns less than £100k. So let me just recap; be brilliant, get paid less! Run a failing trust where people wait so long for treatment they actually heal on their own out of sheer boredom; and you get a Porsche.
Since 2014 NHS spending has gone up 24.5%. That’s fine, we all want better healthcare. But waiting times have gone up too. You could spend less time waiting for a heart scan if you just taught yourself cardiology off YouTube.
This is all a bit like budgeting your household bills by cancelling Netflix and growing your own kale while your neighbour, who’s in debt up to his eyeballs, buys a new hot tub and hires a life coach for his cat.
Now the government, bless them, says they’re rolling out a new “carrot and stick” approach. The idea being, if a hospital boss does well, they get a bonus. If they do badly, no raise. Sounds great on paper, until you realise that in the NHS, the carrot is covered in red tape and the stick has been replaced with a £1,200 team-building weekend in the Cotswolds.
The NHS Confederation, the professional club for these well-compensated captains of calamity; says we shouldn’t be too harsh. That some executives are working in “challenging environments”. Right. And I once tried to reverse a yacht onto a small mooring in a gale-force wind. I didn’t get £300k for doing it badly.
Now look, I’m not saying every NHS executive is a villain. But maybe, just maybe, when we’re all being told there’s no money for more nurses, no funds for new cancer scanners, and we can’t possibly afford to shorten waiting lists; we might want to glance at the payroll.
Because while you and I are hunting down supermarket loyalty card deals and driving 20 miles for cheaper petrol, there are NHS managers out there earning more than brain surgeons; all while watching the system crumble like a stale hobnob.
Still if you ever feel unwell, don’t worry. You might not see a doctor, but there’s a very well-paid executive who’ll be happy to email you a diversity survey.
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
Bsky: @dailydoseofdisbelief.com
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