Clinicians back chief executive in pay row

Karen Jackson, chief executive of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation trust, faced calls to resign after the Yorkshire Post revealed her pay had risen to £170,000, an increase of £25,000.

The rise, which was awarded in April last year and means she now earns comfortably more than the £142,500 paid to Prime Minister David Cameron, was branded “a reward for failure” and was followed by calls for her to quit from senior councillors, including Chris Shaw, the Labour leader of North East Lincolnshire Council.

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

But now in an open letter, 14 of the trust’s most senior clinicians have asked Mrs Jackson’s critics how they would survive “this level of ignominy being piled upon them”, and said it would be “disastrous” for the trust if she left.

The letter, endorsed by most of the clinical directors at the trust, said: “Since April 2012, Mrs Jackson’s salary has been commensurate with that of most chief executives of other NHS organisations of this size and type.

“Had she not initially been appointed on a lower pay scale in 2010 and had she not turned down previous attempts at regularising her position in 2011, her remuneration is unlikely to have attracted any attention at all.

“The level of her pay may surprise some people, but this is the market rate for this level of responsibility in the NHS.

“Chief executive posts do become available on a regular basis and anyone wishing to attain this level of pay is able to apply.”

It added: “We would appeal to all those observing this story unfold in the press to consider how they would survive this level of ignominy being piled upon them by some media and politicians and ask themselves what they want of their local hospital.

“We currently have a leader who inherited a challenging situation in 2010 and is now directing us out of difficult times.

“If she succumbs to this level of pressure it would be disastrous for this organisation, which would be left rudderless until the appointment of a replacement whose salary would be the same if not higher (considerably so in the case of an interim) and who would not have the benefit of five years’ experience of serving the organisation and its local population, as Mrs Jackson has.”

The trust was put into special measures following publication of the Keogh Review into 14 NHS trusts with higher than expected mortality rates.

It had been flagged as an “outlier” after recording higher than expected death rates in each of the last two years, having a Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) of 118 in 2012, and of 116 in 2011, when the expected average is 100.

Failings uncovered in the review included patients in Grimsby being deprived of fluids, patients waiting in a car park at Scunthorpe because A&E was full, patients being moved from A&E to avoid breaching triage targets, and patients being given “inappropriate” food.