Chief nurses in the NHS have been handed pay packets of more than £400,000 a year – while frontline staff faced a pay freeze.

Some are receiving in a month what their struggling nurses earn during an entire year.

One even ‘retired’ for 24 hours to pocket a lump sum of £220,000 – then went back to work the next day earning as much as the Prime Minister.

Health minister Jeremy Hunt, pictured, said he would investigate the Mail's findings 'as a priority'

The sums can be revealed after the Mail carried out an audit of NHS accounts to examine the true scale of top-level pay.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has vowed to investigate the Mail’s findings and end the abuse of NHS funds uncovered by the Mail ‘as a priority’.

The pay packages for chief nurses – hospital board directors who are in charge of nursing – will prompt fury at a time when frontline staff have been handed a one per cent rise after two years of pay freezes.

Last night the Royal College of Nursing said its members would ‘struggle to comprehend’ the pay gap between themselves and their bosses, who were getting ‘vastly inflated financial rewards’ while the NHS was in crisis.

TRISH ARMSTRONG-CHILD: THE £300K PENSION PACKAGE Trish Armstrong-Child, right, another director of nursing, was granted a £405,000 package while working at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust last year. This included £307,500 in pension-related benefits on top of her £95,000-a-year salary. She was handed the huge boost after being promoted to the board. The glamorous nurse’s massive pay packet will raise eyebrows in Bolton – where she once claimed she would ‘restore confidence’ in the local hospital. ‘If you get the basics right, then everything else falls into place,’ said the boss, who turned 45 yesterday. However, soon afterwards – in the year when she got her huge pay deal – Mrs Armstrong-Child was forced to defend the Royal Bolton Hospital over a series of worrying ‘never events’, the name for serious failures that should never happen in the NHS. The three events involved swabs being left inside women patients in the Maternity Unit – one of whom was pregnant. Mrs Armstrong-Child told a newspaper that her staff had had to be re-trained to count swabs after the incidents, which were all ‘avoidable’ and had been taken ‘very seriously.’ She said at the time: ‘Clearly, these never events should not have happened.’ The trust last year reported a financial deficit of £5.6million. Mrs Armstrong-Child lives in a red brick semi-detached house in Prescot, Merseyside. Yesterday, Land Rover Discovery and Freelander 4x4s were parked outside the property. A spokesman for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust said the figure of £307,000 in pension benefits for Trish Armstrong-Child was ‘a notional figure of pension growth’. The spokesman added that the high figure was ‘a one-off spike’ because Mrs Armstrong-Child had become a director. Advertisement

Patients’ groups said the pay packages were ‘horrifying’ and ‘utterly unfair’.

And Tory Andrew Percy, who sat on the health select committee, added: ‘This is completely unacceptable. The revolving door of NHS executive pay has to end.’

One chief nurse cost the NHS £206,500 for just ten months’ work. Jackie Ardley’s monthly cost to the NHS – which included her salary and agency fees – amounted to what some nurses earn in a whole year.

Professor Katherine Fenton, chief nurse at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, claimed a £220,000 tax-free pension lump sum by ‘retiring’ for a day. She withdrew the amount from her £1.5million NHS pension pot in January last year when she was 57.

She did this by using a pension ‘loophole’ and retiring for 24 hours before returning to her £140,000 a year job. This also meant she had to work part-time for the following month – but this was not announced by the trust.

Trish Armstrong-Child, another director of nursing, was handed a £405,000 package last year. This included £307,500 in pension benefits to collect on retirement on top of her £95,000 salary. She was handed the huge boost after becoming a director of nursing at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust in 2013.

The Mail’s investigation has revealed that NHS bosses got a six per cent average pay rise last year – costing the NHS £35million.

This huge amount could have covered the salaries of 1,346 nurses on their average wages of £26,000 a year.

By contrast, NHS nurses got just one per cent after two years of pay freezes. Inflation at that time was 2 per cent, meaning they suffered a real terms pay cut.

The pay rise was not applied to those due to get an increase under the NHS’s progression pay – with Mr Hunt saying that giving them a one per cent rise too would be ‘unaffordable and would risk the quality of patient care’.

Last night Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: ‘At a time when NHS finances are in crisis, it is shocking that some NHS bosses continue to receive such vastly inflated financial rewards.

‘Nursing staff will struggle to comprehend that their bosses have had an average six per cent pay rise when they are only getting one per cent this year, having seen their pay fall further and further behind the cost of living over the last few years.

‘Across the NHS, the squeeze on budgets is causing staff shortages, severe stress and low morale, all of which impacts on patient care.

‘When money is so scarce, the priority should be to relieve those pressures, not to boost the pay of those who are already so well rewarded.’

Tory MP Mr Percy said: ‘It is awful that chief nurses are making so much money when the nurses they are supposed to represent are struggling and have had their pay frozen. Nurses will be rightly disgusted.’

And Roger Goss of Patient Concern said: ‘Nurses working on the frontline – who are under more pressure every day – will be rightly horrified by this.

‘It is utterly unfair that they should bear the brunt of pay cuts while their bosses pocket these incredible pay and pension deals.’

This is the third day of a Mail investigation into NHS fat cats. We have also revealed this week that NHS chiefs are using a potential tax dodge by channelling salaries of up to £2,000 a day through personal companies.

BOSS KATHERINE FENTON RETIRED FOR A DAY - AND COLLECTED £220K Katherine Fenton, right, last year claimed a tax-free pension lump sum of £220,000 – by ‘retiring’ for just 24 hours. Professor Fenton – who splits her time between homes in London and Harrogate – then carried on working in her £140,000-a-year job. The chief nurse has worked at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since 2011. Last year, on top of her £140,000 salary, she withdrew a lump sum of £220,000 from her NHS pension at 57 , using a provision which allows members to claim retirement benefits by quitting for 24 hours. She could then only work for a maximum of 16 hours per week for a month to qualify for the perk. She then continued to be paid her huge wage. The 24-hour provision was to encourage low paid staff who are in demand – such as frontline nurses – to keep working after 60. Professor Fenton, who was honoured with an OBE for services to nursing, has fully retired this month. A trust spokesman said the purpose of her retirement was not to claim the money and that she would have retired fully at the time but stayed on until a replacement was found this month. Advertisement

Bosses have quit their jobs at NHS trusts to go freelance and claim inflated salaries as consultants. Their huge fees are then paid through personal service companies, which allows them to avoid paying income tax at the source. This means the NHS has no control over what tax is paid on the money spent on the executives’ salaries.

The practice was uncovered by the Mail even though the Treasury effectively banned it three years ago – saying senior staff must only be paid off-payroll in the most exceptional circumstances, and never for longer than six months.

Dr Peter Carter of the Royal College of Nursing said he was 'shocked' by the size of some of the pay packages

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt vowed to ‘stop this abuse as a priority if we form the next government.’ And Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said a Labour government would ‘claw back’ the extraordinary pay-rises revealed by the Mail investigation.

Yesterday a spokesman for West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust said Mrs Ardley’s position was a ‘pivotal’ role. He added: ‘We consider the cost of her appointment to be commensurate with the responsibilities of her role and in line with market expectations.’

A spokesman for University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘Professor Fenton gave 40 years of exemplary service to the NHS.

‘Professor Fenton agreed to stay on until such time we could find a replacement. She would have gone earlier if that had been the case.

‘During this period of part-time cover she was paid a pro-rata salary equivalent to the hours she worked.’

A spokesman for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust said the figure of £307,000 in pension benefits for Trish Armstrong-Child was ‘a notional figure of pension growth.’