Stewart Messer, 57, (pictured) banked more than £750,000 in pay and pensions
Bosses at a cash-strapped NHS trust paid out £1.2million to cover a senior manager who was off work for almost three years.
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust sparked fury after it emerged that Stewart Messer, 57, had banked more than £750,000 in pay and pensions.
The trust also spent about £500,000 on interim chief operating officers to cover for him during his absence from May 2015.
Mr Messer earned £120,000 a year at the trust, which had a £59million deficit in 2015/16.
It has now emerged he left the trust in February this year with a £243,468 pay-off.
Neither the trust or Mr Messer have disclosed the reason for his absence.
Mr Messer, who lives on a £360,000 private estate in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, said: ‘I have worked in the NHS for 39 years and I would have liked to return to my job but I have not been given an opportunity.’
Pictures of Mr Messer on social media show him enjoying his time off from work, attending weddings, clutching pints of beer and pulling faces.
Taxpayers’ have reacted furiously at the NHS, branding their handling of Mr Messer’s case as ‘scandalous.’
Pictures of Mr Messer on social media show him enjoying his time off from work, attending weddings, clutching pints of beer and pulling faces
Mr Messer lives on a £360,000 private estate in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (general view)
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spent about £500,000 on interim chief operating officers to cover for Mr Messer during his absence from May 2015
John O’Connell, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Taxpayers in Worcestershire will be taken aback by these extraordinary sums, and it is absolutely crucial that a payment of that size is paid out with transparency to ensure accountability of the process.
‘The authorities should remember that taxpayers expect their money to go towards cancer drugs and nurses, not on sky high pay packages that are unnecessarily opaque.’
Heart patient Jim Walker, 50, from Worcester, said: ‘At a time when the NHS – and this trust in particular – is in dire straits, to splash out £1million on one director who hasn’t even worked for three years is nothing short of scandalous.
‘Whatever the reasons for Mr Messer’s absence, this should have been sorted out years ago. How many nurses and medicines could that have paid for?’
A spokesman for the trust said: ‘We have fulfilled our legal obligation to publish information regarding the remuneration of Mr Messer up until he left the employment of the trust, as well as details of all exit packages agreed during the year.’
Father-of-three Nicholas Johnson, 40, added: ‘My sister works as a nurse at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch and she is sick of the NHS being run by clueless fat cats.
The trust has paid out a total of £1.2 million, including £755,000 to Mr Messer for his pay, pensions, and eventual pay-out
Mr Messer, who lives on a £360,000 private estate in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, said: ‘I have worked in the NHS for 39 years and I would have liked to return to my job but I have not been given an opportunity’
‘How can anyone with good conscience sit on their backside for three years coining in £120,000-a-year while nurses can barely scrape by month to month.
‘It’s disgusting and the board at the trust should either be sacked or resign in disgrace.
‘No wonder the people actually working on the frontline of the NHS are as demoralised as they have ever been.’
The trust has paid out a total of £1.2 million, including £755,000 to Mr Messer for his pay, pensions, and eventual pay-out.
A further £500,000 was spent on wages to cover Mr Messer.
Interim Chief Operating Officer Jim O’Connell was paid £90,000 during the past financial year, while Inese Robotham was paid £195,000.
It has previously been reported that Rab McEwan was paid £200,000 to replace Mr Messer after he left work in 2015.
Neither the trust or Mr Messer have disclosed the reason for his prolonged absences
It is the latest scandal to hit the trust which was placed in special measures by the Care Quality Commission.
In February 2015 four consultants who ran the trust’s A&E department in the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch quit on the same day.
A year later the trust was revealed to be in the bottom five per cent in the country for patient mortality.
The trust also paid out almost £2million in damages to 19 patients – including the families of five people who died – after they were operated on by a rogue surgeon.
Sudip Sarker, 48, was jailed for six years in February this year for lying about his surgical experience.
Nearly 1,700 patients ‘begged’ the NHS for hip and knee surgeries but operations were still denied due to rationing
The reality of NHS rationing means soaring numbers of patients are being denied hip and knee surgery – despite ‘begging’ letters from their doctors, an investigation has found.
Nearly 1,700 ‘exceptional’ requests were turned down by health trusts last year, up 45 per cent on 2016/17.
GPs and consultants are increasingly having to put in special requests for patients to undergo procedures which were once carried out as a routine.
The reality of NHS rationing means soaring numbers of patients are being denied hip and knee surgery – despite ‘begging’ letters from their doctors, an investigation has found
Many trusts – Clinical Commissioning Groups – will only let patients have hip or knee surgery if patients are unable to sleep or are constantly on painkillers.
If patients don’t fulfil the criteria, their doctor must fill out a form, an exceptional or individual funding request, proving they still deserve the op.
This is then judged by a panel of healthcare workers and managers who meet once a month to decide on all cases without ever meeting patients.
Medical leaders say they are ‘appalled’ that doctors have to beg for operations on patients’ behalf which were once routinely provided by the NHS.
Freedom of Information requests by the BMJ to the 195 Clinical Commissioning Groups in England show that 1,675 of these requests were rejected in 2017/18. This was up from 1,155 in 2016/17 and some health trusts turn down more than 90 per cent of all requests.
The responses from 167 of the 195 CCGs show the number of requests being made by doctors has risen by 50 per cent in a year as the criteria has become increasingly strict. A total of 16,169 requests were put in during 2017/18, up from 10,598 requests in 2016/17.