Management salaries rise while nurses learn their jobs are not safe - Burstow

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 13th Sep 2006

Paul Burstow, MP for Sutton and Cheam, has spoken of his dismay at news that health bosses at Epsom and St Helier Hospital trust have received their second pay rise this year. The news comes as UNISON representatives at St Helier hospital began to learn the full impact on nursing jobs of bed closures.

Figures in the trust's annual report indicated above-inflation pay rises for the Hospital's chief executive Lorraine Clifton, as well as rises for the director of nursing, director of clinical operations and medical director. The total senior management salary bill at the trust is £545,000, up £30,000 from last year.

Following news of the salary increases, union representatives learnt last week of the impact of bed closures proposed as part of a £24 million cost-cutting programme. In October, the Trust announced that it planned to close 170 beds. Union representatives have told Paul Burstow that they were informed last week that any ward nursing position at the hospital is potentially at risk of redundancy as a result of the bed closures.

Commenting on the news of potential redundancies among nursing staff, Paul Burstow MP said:

"We are now beginning to see the real impact which these bed closures will have: the hospital will lose highly-trained, effective staff at the front-line of care provision."

Commenting on the pay increases for senior managers at the trust, Mr Burstow said:

"At best the trust management has revealed an appalling sense of timing; at worst this announcement is just plain crass."

"Nursing staff going to work with the prospect of redundancy hanging over their heads must be shocked to learn that senior managers have just received a pay rise."