Nurses ‘shocked’ by pay rise for boss of failing hospital trust

THE Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has said its members are “shocked” by the “massive” pay rise given to the boss of a failing NHS trust.

As revealed in yesterday’s Yorkshire Post, Karen Jackson, chief executive of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, now earns £170,000 – comfortably more than the £142,500 paid to Prime Minister David Cameron.

The trust, which runs hospitals in Goole, Grimsby, and Scunthorpe, was placed in “special measures” last month after a litany of failings were uncovered in a Government-ordered review carried out by NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh.

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The probe was ordered by Ministers in the wake of the landmark report into the scandal-hit Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust and looked at 14 NHS trusts with higher than expected death rates.

The trust, which has to save £15m by 2015, recorded higher than expected death rates in each of the last two years.

Glenn Turp, regional director for the RCN in Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “Nurses and health care assistants have had a two-year pay freeze since 2011 and have been awarded just one per cent for this year and next.

“They are struggling to keep their heads above water financially as their pay levels fail to keep pace with inflation.

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“I’m sure RCN members will be shocked that the trust has rewarded its chief executive with a massive pay increase.”

He added: “It appears that there is one rule for the frontline, and another rule for the boardroom.”

Andrew Allison, spokesman for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the revelation “adds insult to injury” following the findings of the Keogh Review.

“Mrs Jackson has been rewarded handsomely for failure – there’s no other way to describe it,” he said.

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Trust chairman James Whittingham said Mrs Jackson’s salary was now “roughly in line with the average for trusts of this size and type” and that it would be a “false economy” to pay her less.

The trust initially said Mrs Jackson’s pay had gone up by £30,000, a rise of more than 20 per cent.

But it said yesterday this was an error and the rise was £25,000, as her previous salary was £145,000, not the £140,000 originally stated.