Burnham Times: Salary shock on NHS rich list

The acting chief executive of the trust running Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton is paid more than the Prime Minister.

According to a public sector rich list Dr Peter Cavanagh earns £190,400 per year compared with Gordon Brown who earns £188, 849.

On a list of people receiving top NHS remuneration packages Dr Cavanagh, of Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust, is ranked 22nd below people from large city and London hospitals.

The average earnings on the NHS list was £181,956 and the highest was Norman Lindsay, director of Turnaround at Whipps Cross University NHS Trust who received £395,000 a year.

This compares with a nurse's starting salary of just £21,985.

The rich list was the second one produced by the TaxPayers' Alliance which lists the 300 most highly paid people in the public sector.

It was compiled so taxpayers can judge for themselves whether the remuneration of senior officials represents good value for money.

TaxPayers Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: "Taxpayers have a right to know how much senior public sector officials are being paid."

In response to Dr Cavanagh's name appearing on the list a spokesman for Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust said as acting chief executive he is responsible for more than 4,000 staff, an annual budget of £180m, and all the activity of a busy district general hospital.

He is a working consultant radiologist and his total remuneration package in 2006-07 was made up of a number of elements.

They were:

Standard NHS consultant's salary;

A national Clinical Excellence award of £45,000, paid centrally and not by Musgrove Park, for his contribution to excellence in the delivery, development and management of health care;

Responsibility payment for being medical director and acting chief executive; and

Pension contribution and allowable expenses such as mileage.

The spokesman said: "As the survey shows, it is usual for senior medical directors to receive remuneration packages similar to this - with 16 other medical directors of NHS Trusts in broadly the same range."

But a union official claimed NHS workers would feel undermined by the size of some salaries.

Unison regional health manager Joanne Kaye-Smith said: "The lowest paid staff, who run the NHS day in and day out, are on less than £6 an hour and it's beyond belief that someone else working in the same organisation is worth so much more. It is of immense concern to us that the NHS is paying enormous salaries to those at the top while those at the bottom, cleaning hospitals and cooking for patients, are paid so little.

"The majority of staff within the NHS have clear and transparent pay scales and are presently subject to Government pay policy resulting in below inflation pay awards.

"The news that different rules apply to those at the top is a slap in the face for staff, who ultimately are those people most likely to make a difference to patient care."