Leader: NHS bosses deserve the pay if they do the job

HIGHLY paid public servants are a soft target for politicians who find it easier to utter headline-grabbing soundbites than to take a more considered approach to the issue. The pay levels of the senior executives in Scotland’s National Health Service, published yesterday, have, predictably, proved that point again.

No sooner had it been revealed that the top ten highest-paid executives among Scotland’s 14 health boards had earned just under £2 million in just one year, than the Liberal Democrats and Labour were issuing pious statements of condemnation. The SNP, were it in opposition not government, would be little better.

Yet consider the positions these people, paid between £180,000 and £245,000 a year, occupy: they are chief executives, medical directors and directors of public health; the people on whom we depend to run the most important of all the taxpayer-funded services, our NHS. These are not derivative-dealing, fat-cat bankers, and nor are they paid like them.

Those in such posts deserve to be appropriately rewarded for the responsibilities they take if, and this is crucial given some recent problems in the NHS, they manage the service efficiently in the interests of the public.

In times of public-sector austerity, they should not be insulated from reality – and figures yesterday showing a big annual increase in NHS staff earning more than £50,000 a year are of concern – but the principle remains that if you want the best service you must employ the best people. And pay them properly.