NHS hires £100k HR boss to help axe 2,000 workers

NHS LOTHIAN has created a new £100,000-a-year human resources role as part of the same strategy which will axe 333 nurses, it can be revealed today.

It has emerged that while health chiefs want to slim the workforce by 2,000 over the next two years, an assistant director of HR has been appointed – on the wage of four nurses. Patient groups and politicians, who have campaigned for frontline workers to be protected, are furious that a six-figure salary could be given for a role that has not existed for at least three years.

Health chiefs remained tight-lipped on the appointment, confirming only that interviews were held in March and April and that the post was for three years.

The new staff member – whose identity is unknown – will assist director of human resources Alan Boyter, who himself is paid 140,000 per year. And their main job will be to cut the workforce from 29,000 to 27,000.

Labour's health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: "I find it astonishing at a time when they are losing frontline staff like nurses they're creating another HR post that will oversee the demise of NHS Lothian frontline staff.

"It strikes me that the priorities are warped."

Earlier this week, the Evening News revealed hundreds of nursing jobs were due to be axed this year, just days after health chiefs had promised to "protect" frontline workers. Scotland Patients Association chairwoman Margaret Watt said: "This is quite obscene. It's time the top of the tree was pruned, we can't lose any more from elsewhere."

And one senior NHS Lothian source said: "Certainly they (the new assistant director) wouldn't have been brought in if huge staffing changes weren't afoot."

The news comes as the health board outline plans to reduce spending by 31 million over the next year. As well as 700 job cuts – none of which will be compulsory redundancies – a number of efficiency packages have been outlined.

These include reducing the number of agency and bank nurses used on wards across the area; increase investment in the ever-popular nurse-led clinics; and reduce sickness absence, which NHS Lothian bosses say could save the equivalent of 180 full time staff.

The estimated shortfall in NHS Lothian's budget has now increased to 70 million, and health chiefs have long felt a disproportionate amount of cash is sent through to Glasgow's health board.

Mr Boyter said: "We have recently recruited to fill a senior HR post which has remained vacant for the past three years."