NHS manager allowed to work from Marbella on rates of £2,000 a day
Under the deal agreed by the Labour-run Welsh NHS.
By Laura Donnelly, Health Editor
Daily Telegraph
Marbella
Sunday 26th April 2020
The NHS deal means rates of almost £2,000 a day - including a day a week working from the Spanish resort of Marbella
An NHS manager is being paid rates of almost £2,000 a day and allowed to work from his home in Marbella, an investigation has found.
The “astronomical” sums, revealed in Freedom of Information disclosures, are being paid by a health board which has a deficit of more than £40 million.
Under the deal agreed by the Labour-run Welsh NHS, management consultant Philip Burns will earn more than £360,000 for a nine-month contract which allows him to work a day a week from his Spanish home.
Betsi Cadwaladr University health board in North Wales said it was paying “the market rate” for expertise in “turnaround” measures.
Mr Burns is among five highly paid “interim” appointments made by the trust as it embarks on efforts to cut costs, on rates of between £715 and £1,990 a day.
The board has been in special measures for more than four years.
Welsh assembly members said it “beggars belief” that such deals had been agreed by an organisation which is considering proposals to cut nurses pay.
Mr Burns' contract is more than the £200,000 a year earned by the board’s chief executive.
The payments were revealed after a Freedom of Information request to the board by Plaid Cymru Assembly Member Llyr Gruffydd.
Mr Gruffydd said he was "extremely concerned" at the "astronomical” sums being paid and the arrangement which allowed Mr Burns to work from Marbella.
He highlighted proposals by the trust to cut nurses’ earnings, by insisting they were unpaid for breaks during twelve-and-a-half hour shifts.
"It beggars belief that the health board have to resort to overpaid consultants to do this work. It also begs the question about why senior managers in the health board can't find savings without putting additional pressure on overstretched nursing staff,” he said.
"BCUHB has a £42 million deficit and one in nine of its nursing posts is vacant,” he said, highlighting spending on agency nurses.
"If we're having to see costly consultants come in to run the show, then it suggests that senior management isn't doing its job. Given that the health board is under the direct control of the Welsh Government, the buck stops with them."
A spokesman for Betsi Cadwaladr UHB said: “Our priority is to deliver considerable improvements in unscheduled care, planned care and financial management and to achieve this, we are temporarily strengthening our existing capacity and expertise in these areas.
“Interim staff have been appointed in accordance with our standing financial instructions to undertake specific roles for a short period of time.
“Appointing a recovery director was a recommendation from the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, who called for more resources to be devoted to turnaround action, including bringing in additional specialist external turnaround expertise. There is a market rate for this level of expertise and that is what we are paying.”
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.