Greed: EDP: £54,000 payment for ex-NSFT boss who got top job at Colchester Hospital three months later

NHS managers wonder why we have a low opinion of them…

Matt Stott of the East Anglian Daily Times (EADT) reports:

Alison Armstrong resigned as director of operations at the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) in January 2017 after two years. She was applauded for helping to remove the NSFT from special measures and improving services.

That’s not quite what we heard.

Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) were damning about services for young people in Suffolk.

Health board documents have now revealed Ms Armstrong, who earned between £130-135,000 per year, received a £54,000 payment in respect of an entitlement to payment in lieu of notice.

We thought NSFT’s Board directors were paid £98,000 per year.

Why is Ms Armstrong receiving a penny when she ‘resigned’?

In April 2017, she became the head of operations for medicine and emergency care at the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust.
The disclosure has prompted fresh concerns over the “revolving door culture” of NHS managers finding similar work soon after leaving a job in the same area.

It would be interesting to know when Alison Armstrong was interviewed for her new role, wouldn’t it?

What a surprise that the husband of one of NSFT’s Directors also works as a Director at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust.

It is an executives’ merry-go-round in the East of England NHS Theme Park.

Mark Robinson, Unite’s lead officer for health in the East of England, said: “It is commonplace to see senior managers in the NHS leave one organisation after a relatively short period of time and receive a significant pay off, only to resurface in another local trust shortly afterwards.

Just as the Chief Executive of NSFT, Michael ‘Payrise’ Scott, did, as reported in the Daily Telegraph.

And as did the former Finance Director of NSFT, Andrew Hopkins and the current Finance Director of NSFT, Julie Cave.

While services are cut, the NHS bureaucrats enrich themselves. Again and again and again.

“This causes instability (and) is money that would be better spent in providing a decent pay rise for hard-hit NHS staff and improving patient services. The management ‘merry go round’… must stop.”

The NSFT ended the 2016/17 year with a £3.3m deficit, a fall from £8.9m in 2015/16.

TaxPayers’ Alliance grassroots campaign manager James Price said: “Taxpayers will want to know why someone is receiving a huge lump sum for leaving, only to walk immediately into another senior role somewhere else.

“Of course staff who are performing well will require adequate remuneration. But unfortunately this revolving door culture means that taxpayers are getting hit twice: once in the form of a payout and then again in the form of new salaries.”

How often do unions and the TaxPayers’ Alliance agree?

Ms Armstrong and the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust declined to comment.

Of course they did. Their snouts are too deeply buried in the trough to speak.

A NSFT spokesman said: “Alison Armstrong announced her resignation from the role of Director of Operations (Suffolk) in December 2016. We can confirm that Alison received her NHS contractual (and legal) entitlement in lieu of notice.”

It might be legal but it is immoral and disgusting. NSFT’s income this year is £3.3m lower than in 2012-13. 139 beds have been closed. Unexpected deaths have doubled. But the NHS Gravy Train continues to speed on its way for the unaccountable bureaucracy. We hope Alison Armstrong enjoys her £54,000.

NHS bureaucrats defend the indefensible because they themselves hope to benefit at the expense of the taxpayer and the NHS. Oink! Oink!

On the contrary, the entire rotten NSFT Board should be sacked without compensation.

Click on the image below to read the article in full on the EDP website:

2 thoughts on “Greed: EDP: £54,000 payment for ex-NSFT boss who got top job at Colchester Hospital three months later”

  1. Why was it in her contract to get a payoff for RESIGNING…..no other clinician would receive such a payoff……was it part of a gagging clause??? We can only guess at such a strange arrangement as she declines to comment…..rewarding failure, and dressing it up as progress…….while leaving clinicians to struggle and ultimately ‘carry the can’……..I can only dread what all those let down by the trust and the bereaved relatives must think……SHAME on all those with no morals.

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