Western Morning News: Hospital staff are rewarded with m&s vouchers

Hard-working staff at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital (RD&E) have been given Marks & Spencer vouchers as a reward.

The board of the RD&E NHS Foundation Trust has presented each of its 5,250 members of staff with a £25 gift voucher as a thank you, after the hospital hit Government targets.

Dr Adrian Midgley, from the Isca Medical Practice, welcomed the gifts, which totalled £131,250. He said: "As an employer, I think it good to reward employees. It is something which is generally appreciated. If you give people a token to say 'well done', everyone in the organisation tends to feel good about it."

Health minister and Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw said: "The RD&E is an excellent hospital, thanks to the hard work and professionalism of its staff at every level. It is perfectly appropriate for the management to recognise the staff's achievements in this way."

RD&E spokesman Wendy Shaw said: "The past year at the hospital has been extremely busy.

"By way of a thank-you to our staff for their hard work serving patients and the achievement of all our performance targets, the board of the trust agreed that members of staff in employment on January 31 and still working for the trust on March 31, would each receive a £25 Marks & Spencer voucher.

"The cost of this thank-you is a very small sum in the context of a £286 million annual trust budget. We believe staff morale and letting staff know they are valued is as important as patient care."

However, Mark Wallace, campaign director for the pressure group The TaxPayers' Alliance, condemned the rewards, saying: "It's remarkable that the trust feels it has so much money that it can afford to just give it away."