Anger at pay-outs to health chiefs

Nationalist and unionist Assembly members have strongly criticised severance payments worth more than £1 million made to eight…

Nationalist and unionist Assembly members have strongly criticised severance payments worth more than £1 million made to eight health board executives in the North.

A report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office revealed that the payments, ranging from £5,750 to £331,000, were paid out to former executives of two health trusts and one health board. The report criticised instances where there was no claw-back clause if executives subsequently got a job in the National Health Service.

In one case, a trust chief executive accepted a package worth almost £90,000 and took up a post with a trust in England a week later.

Mr Roy Beggs Jnr MLA (UUP), a member of the Assembly's public accounts committee, said it was "scandalous", that guidelines on claw-back clauses had not been adhered to.

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Sinn Fein MLA and health committee member Mr John Kelly called the payments an insult to "overworked and underpaid" people working in the NHS.