NHS chief paid up to £200,000 for nine months work as staff costs soar at Norfolk’s Clinical Commissioning Groups

Norfolk and Waveney has five different groups called Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) led by GPs.

They are given hundreds of millions of pounds a year by the government to fund NHS services. Since 2013 their budget in Norfolk has risen by more than £105 million.

And as their roles have grown they have taken on more staff, meaning spending on staff has increased by 60pc since 2013/14 to £15.2m last year.

Yarmouth and Waveney CCG, which has shut services at Northgate Hospital in Great Yarmouth, All Hallows Hospital in Bungay, Patrick Stead Hospital in Halesworth and Southwold Hospital, spends more on staff wages than any other CCG.

Differences in hospital waiting times means people in different parts of Norfolk and Waveney can be waiting several weeks longer for procedures. Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto/VILevi (Image: VILevi)

It spent £5.3m last year on staff costs – £2m more than the next CCG in Norfolk. Its staff costs have doubled in the last four years.

A spokesman for the CCG said this was largely because it had kept back office services in-house rather than using a centralised NHS service.

Despite staff costs increasing to around £15m at the five CCGs, a spokesman said total running costs had reduced since 2013/14 from £25 per head to circa £22 per head.

North and South Norfolk CCGs are now sharing management, which will save £900,000 this year, the NHS spokesman said.

The two CCGs also now share the post of finance officer.

But in 2015/16, South Norfolk spent a six-figure sum on interim finance officers. It paid £100,000 for David Gilburt to be chief finance office from November 2015 to May 2016.

Before that it paid another member, Andrew Spring, £70,000 to be interim finance officer from the end of July 2015 to November 2015 – three-and-a-half months' work.

And a third person, Jim Hayburn, cost more than £200,0000 to be interim finance office from March 2015 to July and then interim chief from August to December 2015 – nine months' work in total.

See also: Why patients in different areas of Norfolk wait weeks longer for same NHS treatment

North Norfolk's chair, meanwhile, Dr Anoop Dhesi, was the best paid chair of all Norfolk CCGs earning £120,000 from the CCG last year. He was given a £30,000 pay rise on the previous year.

Other GP members of the North Norfolk board were also given five-figure pay increases last year.

Dr Linda Hunter was paid £100,000 – an increase on the year before of £30,000. Dr Penelope Ayling's pay also increased by £30,000.

A CCG spokesman said the GP members had taken on extra work that year so were paid more.