SUFFOLK: Health bosses have today said their pay will be frozen this year, it can be revealed.

More details emerged today about the salaries of NHS Suffolk chief executive Carole Taylor-Brown and Ipswich Hospital chief executive Andrew Reed, as reported in yesterday’s Evening Star.

Mr Reed has stressed that his salary has not risen by 7.4 per cent, as reported, but by just over 3.4pc. His salary has effectively gone up from �135,000 to around �140,000.

He said this rise in his salary was down to getting two lots of cost of living allowances in the one financial year (due to a delay) which amounts to a 3.4pc rise.

Mrs Taylor-Brown wanted to clarify that she has not had a pay rise of 19pc. Her total take-home pay package for 2008/09 was 19pc more than the previous one due to a bonus and two years’ worth of pay from her role at the Anglia Cancer Network, taking her pay package for last year alone to just over �155,000.

However her actual pay rise for NHS Suffolk was 2.2pc and this will be frozen this year.

Mr Reed said: “A pay rise of 7.4pc was news indeed to me, as the reality is that I will not receive a pay rise this year. In fact, I have only ever received the same cost of living uplift as all other colleagues in the hospital since I arrived in July 2005. I have not received any other increments, payments or pay rises.”

Carole Taylor-Brown, chief executive of NHS Suffolk, said: “I would like to give people a more accurate picture of my earnings since I was appointed in 2006/07 following yesterday’s article and editorial.

“Firstly, I will receive no percentage pay rise for the financial year 2010/11, in line with the national pay framework for senior managers, nor will I be taking any performance bonus payments. All NHS staff, including nurses, will receive a cost of living award of 2.25 per cent.

“Secondly, my basic salary in the last financial year was �138,571. This is set nationally for all PCT chief executives and relates to a national scale according to the size of the PCT area.

“Finally, what appears to have caused confusion is that in one year I was given two years’ of back-pay for my work with Anglia Cancer Network and a one-off bonus payment of �8,352. The bonus payment was paid for leading a financial recovery of �34m. I appreciate that these are large sums of money; so too is my responsibility and role.

“There is no doubt that nurses do sterling work, as do all other clinicians and support staff across the NHS. I am also very passionate about making a difference to patient care and have done just that in my role.

“The additional pay allowance and the bonus are entirely separate from basic pay and stand as one-off payments in each year.”

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