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Amount spent by trust providing services up £10m
• HERE at Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust we sometimes disagree with the opinions expressed in the New Journal, but we still celebrate your right to cajole, criticise and campaign.
However, your article (Charges of ‘hypocrisy’ levelled at health bosses over wage rise, September 18) is so factually inaccurate that it must be responded to.
Your sub-heading claimed “executives approve pay raise” and you state that “mental health bosses… awarded themselves… pay rises.”
This is wholly untrue.
The decision about the remuneration paid to non-executive directors is made by law by the foundation trust governors.
The board of directors have no part in the decision-making.
We are a membership organisation, and thousands of local people have joined us.
Our members democratically elect our governors.
The governors decided that our chair and non-executive directors will receive a more modest package than almost every other foundation trust in England.
It is true that three governors had concerns about the proposals, and you quote them at length, but you fail to report that over 75 per cent of the governors who voted agreed with the proposals.
The article fails to mention that the number of non-executive directors is being reduced, but the workload has increased.
The total cost of the new rates to the trust in this financial year will be about £20,000.
Our governors decided that this is a reasonable price to pay for the effective leadership of a body responsible for
£140million of public money.
And your article fails to mention the actual amount that the non-executive directors will be paid, £11,000 a year.
The article states that £8million has been “slashed from care budgets”.
In fact the governors’ meeting heard the amount spent by the trust on providing services increased by £10million last year.
You report that one part-time service – with three staff – has closed in its current form but ignore the reports that the governors heard about service developments this year across mental health care of older people, psychological therapies, early intervention services, alcohol services and in accident and emergency.
Finally, it is disappointing that the New Journal did not seek any comment from the trust before going to print.
The meeting that made these decisions took place six days before your deadline.
On this occasion I hope the New Journal will be big enough to admit that it has got it wrong and publish a correction.
WENDY WALLACE
Chief Executive, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
Ethical?
• SIMON Wroe’s brilliant article (Charges of ‘hypocrisy’ levelled at health bosses over wage rise, September 18) gave me a day’s work phoning round the Department of Health.
I discovered that what the foundation trust did was legal but the question remains – was it ethical and was it wise?
According to my research Professor David Taylor is one of the highest-paid chairs in the UK with an annual remuneration of nearly £35,000, although the chair of an obscure trust in Berkshire made headlines by being given £45,000, the highest in the country.
In practical terms it was actually the foundation governors who voted for the increase but, after all, if they vote the way the trust wants, a select few may themselves be “promoted” to non-executive directors with an annual handout of nearly £10,000 for nine three-hour meetings and voting “the right way.”
At one time integrity and idealism were key to public appointments, now its “grab and guzzle”, while the ship of mental health sinks into deeper abandonment.
The £8.1million in cuts is only the beginning.
BARRY TEBB
Connaught Road
Sutton
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