GMB says extra payment to David Flory is hypocritical at a time of widespread budget deficits in NHS trusts and a row over junior doctors’ contracts

Health unions have reacted with fury to the handing of a £410,000 payoff to a senior NHS executive and close adviser to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

David Flory announced in March he was standing down as chief executive of the NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA), an arm of the health department that oversees NHS trusts, which has since merged with Monitor, another NHS regulator, to form NHS Improvement.

The authority’s annual accounts show Flory was given a “termination payment” of between £410,000 and £415,000 in addition to his £235,000 salary. The revelation could prove incendiary coming at a time that the government is locked in a dispute with junior doctors over pay and conditions.

Unite described the golden goodbye as a “disgrace” as it comes at time when most trusts are running a deficit. GMB said the payment was “extortionate”.

Flory had served for more than 20 years at board level in the NHS and was part of Hunt’s inner circle accused of micromanaging the NHS. Hunt paid a glowing tribute to Flory when he stood down. “I have immensely valued David’s wise counsel, advice and judgment”, the health secretary said earlier this year.

The accounts reveal exactly how much Flory was valued. It said the payment of more than £410,000 was made as part of a “settlement agreement agreed on completion of a fixed-term appointment set out in 2012”. A healthcare analyst said payouts for senior executives in NHS were common but the figures in Flory’s case “seemed unusually large”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Flory worked for over 20 years at board level in the NHS and was part of Jeremy Hunt’s inner circle. Photograph: NTDA/NHS

Flory was one of the “three Davids”, who met each Thursday to update Hunt on the management of NHS. The weekly meeting, revealed by the Guardian in March, was also attended by David Nicholson, then head of NHS England, and David Bennet, head of Monitor, which regulated foundation trusts.

The Unite union’s national officer for health, Barrie Brown, said: “This is a disgraceful reward for a mediocre performance.”



He added: “Legislation before MPs aims to cap all public sector payoffs at £95,000 before Christmas – David Flory’s payoff is four times that amount. The question has to be asked: how many more public sector bosses are going to sneak under the wire with outrageous payoffs before the legislation comes into force?

“The public sector bosses leaving before the cap is introduced could be likened to Gadarene swine rushing headlong into a sea of cash.”

Brown asked: “The rationale for such a payoff is a mystery at a time when the NHS is faced with very real cuts to budgets and services – perhaps the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, could shed some light on this payoff?”

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The GMB union’s national officer for health, Rehana Azam, also said the payoff raised questions for Hunt. She said: “The question is did the secretary of state for health sign off this package? And if so, what rationale has been applied? We can’t ignore the fact three quarters of trusts are showing a deficit. How has the value of a package this size been determined against such bleak NHS forecasts?”

She added: “The TDA had a very specific purpose in providing support to all NHS trusts. Yet we learn of the extortionate payout being made to their exiting head. At a time when pay restraint demands chime out of Whitehall as the norm for millions of public sector workers, there is clearly a level of double standards being applied.”

NHS whistleblower David Drew, a former clinical director at Walsall Manor hospital who was dismissed in 2010 after raising concerns about poor standards of care, said the payout exposed unfairness in the NHS. He said: “It shows there is austerity for everybody in the NHS except those in the upper inner circle, and it is all dressed up in terms of employment contracts.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “This reflects over 20 years at board level where his dedication and exceptional service were invaluable to the NHS. However, we understand public concern about executive pay, which is we’re clamping down on senior NHS managers’ salaries and capping redundancy pay.”