‘Golden goodbyes’ for bosses at crisis-ridden health trust

The agreements came as part of a major restructuring of the board at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust including the departure of former chief executive Brian James.

According to newly-published annual accounts, the biggest award went to former chief of hospital Matthew Lowry who was given £260-£265,000 when he left the trust in March.

Mr James, who resigned in November last year, was paid a salary for the eight months he worked and six months pay in lieu of notice of £220-£225,000. He was due to receive £165-£170,000 for the full year. In another award, Jacqui Bate, chief human resources officer, was given £110-£115,000 when she left in March, on top of an annual salary of £120-£125,000.

She had worked in Rotherham for a only year and has since carried out a range of NHS consultancy roles including working as interim human resources director at an NHS trust in Blackpool.

In a fourth deal, Andrew Irvine was given £60-£65,000 when he left in November from his £105-£110,000-a-year position as chief of transformation. He is now working as an independent consultant including for the NHS in Leeds.

Mr James had taken “flexi-retirement” in 2011 but was re-employed after a few days break in service on a two-year contract with a slightly reduced salary in a deal which allowed him to take his pension. He was also handed a new role which the trust said enabled him to “concentrate on the future strategy of the trust and external partnership working”.

His resignation last November came amid evidence of growing problems at the trust in the wake of failures in a landmark IT project and persistent difficulties achieving key savings targets, triggering the appointment more than a year ago of external experts from consultants PwC to investigate.

Since October, eight executives and senior managers have left the trust and officials from turnaround experts Bolt Partners say £5m has been slashed from management costs.

Managers had hoped to appoint a new chief executive following interviews in August but despite shortlisting four candidates they said that due to uncertainty around the longer-term strategic position of the trust and the outcome of the strategic review and no permanent executive is expected to be in place until next year.

The new boss will be expected to continue a shake-up of organisation at the trust following a highly-critical report investigating how it is run. The Yorkshire Post has obtained limited information about the findings although key details have been censored by the trust.

The report, completed seven weeks ago by external consultants Deloitte, makes 48 recommendations for improvements.

These include “re-building an effective board” by recruiting new non-executives and “clarifying responsibilities” at all levels in the trust.

It said the conduct of directors should be “clarified and formerly (sic) documented in a Director Code of Conduct that all members of the Board are required to sign” - although it remains unclear why this was an issue.

It said there was an “urgent need” to set up a finance committee to provide more detailed scrutiny of financial performance and delivery of savings.

Bosses at the trust make a series of claims for withholding key information in the report, among them that it drew heavily on interviews with trust staff and contained “frank commentary” on how it was run and if the information was made public it would be hard to obtain similar information in the future.

Unusually, it also claimed publishing the information would prejudice the trust’s ability to investigate issues regarding the quality of care arising out of the actions of trust staff. Managers 
decided the public interest in
being transparent about how the trust was working was out-
weighed by the risks in publishing details.

In a statement, Rotherham NHS trust said its group of executive directors was re-organised in February so it was “better able to address its very significant financial and operational challenges”.

The posts of Mr Lowry, Ms Bate and Mr Irvine were made redundant and they were given contractual redundancy pay, which varies according to final salary and length of service, and pay in lieu of notice.

Mr James was given pay in lieu of notice worth six months until his contractual leaving date in May.