MORE than £17.5million was paid out to consultants and top managers at Ipswich Hospital last year, new figures have revealed.

Statistics show there were 120 consultants and two board members at the Heath Road hospital who earned over £100,000 in 2011/12, with the average wage amounting to just over £143,000.

One employee at the trust earned between £210,000 and £220,000. This is a slight drop from the previous year, when there were 130 people earning a six-figure sum, equating up to £18.9m. Of these just three were board members.

The top earner that year was on between £230,000 and £240,000.

In 2009/10 there were 122 consultants and two board members who earned more than £100,000, totalling £17.2m.

In total there are 3,736 employees at the hospital. A consultant’s starting salary is £78,000.

The figures can be revealed after a survey by a national newspaper found more than 7,800 NHS staff were paid over £100,000 last year. The number of top earners has increased in the past year at almost half of the 75 trusts surveyed.

Jan Ingle, Ipswich Hospital spokeswoman, said: “The consultants’ salaries are nationally agreed so payments for additional responsibilities are all part of the national framework. They are entitled to claim for clinical excellence awards and that can increase their salary substantially.

“The board has a remuneration committee made up of non-executive directors (which are independently appointed). They set the salary level for the executive team after carefully looking at those in similar roles in other hospitals of the same size.”

The survey found that in some parts of England, the number of high-earners has risen by more than 50%. The highest-paid executive earned £340,000.

Southampton Hospital had the highest number on six figures in the country with 384.