Stephen Dorrell, Chair of the Health Select Committee, has written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to question why NHS managers given large redundancy payments were re-employed in the health service months later. Dorrell, formerly a Health Secretary in the 1990s, noted that Ministers and NHS England Chief Executive Sir David Nicholson had assured the Committee that provisions were in place to prevent such practice from occuring, but was writing to Hunt to seek clarification on how these processes worked in practice.
The Times (£)
Also from PSI: NHS reforms under fire (again) over redundancy pay
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, and Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, and Bernard Jenkin, Conservative Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee, both criticised the payoffs, and stated that they would also be seeking clarification over current procedures.
Pete from PSI: The Labour Party, through Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, has converted this open goal by claiming that it warned the Government that “the re-organisation [of the health service] would lead to a colossal waste of money on unjustified redundancy payments.” As one of the intentions of the reforms was to reduce the burden of management pay on the NHS, it would seem that the Government has somewhat backfired in its attempts to do so.