Health and Social Care Act 2012: Risk Register

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm that one of the unarguable costs of the reorganisation has been the number of people previously employed by the health service as administrators who received their redundancy settlements and pay-offs but were subsequently re-employed by the health service? Will he tell the House how much this has cost—the initial redundancy settlements, the subsequent salaries that are being paid and the number of people involved? If he does not have that figure to hand, and as he will not publish the risk register, will he at least make available in the House the precise figures of the cost to the taxpayer of this aspect of the reorganisation?

[Earl Howe]

I am certainly happy to write to the noble Lord with whatever figures I have on that front but, of course, those who were made redundant as a result of the reorganisation received payments of no more and no less than they were entitled to under their contracts of employment. There are more than 19,300 fewer administrative staff in the NHS than there were when we came to office, but more than 16,300 more clinical staff, including 7,400 more doctors and 3,300 more nurses.