NHS trust paid out more than £3.5 million in severance payments

More than 100 staff members received additional payments beyond their statutory entitlement from Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust between 2012 and 2015.

Unions have raised concerns about the loss of experienced and talented staff at huge financial cost to the taxpayer.

NHS trust officials said many of the pay-offs followed a restructuring of Sussex Partnership in 2012/13.

The figures are the latest revealed in an investigation by this paper into pay-offs to public sector workers.

In December we revealed that £7.5 million was paid out to staff leaving Sussex councils over the past five years.

The Government has announced its intention to stop the practice in the future by limiting public sector pay-offs to just £95,000.

Figures obtained under Freedom of Information legislation, show the trust made special severance payments to 109 members of staff totalling more than £3.83 million since the start of 2012.

Almost 90 payments totalling more than £3 million were made in just two years with members of staff bagging up to £140,000 each.

The trust also paid out three settlement agreements totalling £369,000 during the same period.

Special severance payments are made to employees in addition to their statutory entitlement upon termination of their employment contract and the Government’s own guidelines are that the payments should be “rare and exceptional” and should only be issued after seeking legal advice.

The payments should be granted only if they are in the public interest and provide value for money.

The type of payments often include confidentiality clauses but the trust denies that any of their payments contained such restrictions.

A UNISON spokesman said many staff members were now relieved to leave the profession because of the stress they were being put under.

He added that trusts under instructions to make huge savings were exploring all options to reduce long-term staff costs even at short-term expense.

He said: “The trust and in particular managers have been very severely cut over the past seven years and so remaining staff are working under unbelievable pressures.

“They are using different methods to move staff out while trying to avoid compulsory redundancies as much as possible.”

A Sussex Partnership spokeswoman said: “In 2012/13 there was a local reorganisation of some NHS services and, as a result, some of our services closed.

“Consequently this had an impact on the number of staff who left the trust over that period.

“We are committed to whistleblowing and encourage and support staff to report their concerns.

“Where concerns and issues are reported or raised, we investigate them.

“We do not have gagging clauses.”

EXTRA £1BILLION GOING INTO MENTAL HEALTH CARE

FRESH funding for mental health treatment in the UK has been unveiled on the same day as The Argus can reveal the extent of golden goodbyes given to staff leaving Sussex Partnership Trust.

One million more people a year with mental health problems will receive treatment in England by 2021 after the NHS pledged to invest an additional £1billion.

The funding announcement comes in the wake of the Mental Health Five Year Forward View report which discovered only 15 per cent of people who need psychological therapy in England get access to care.

The country is seeing a rising suicide rate that peaked in 2014 at 4,882 deaths with suicide the leading cause of death for men aged 15 to 49 years old.

The number of people being detained under the Mental Health Act is also rising year on year.

The Argus revealed earlier this month that the number of serious incidents involving mental health patients in Sussex has more than tripled in three years to 202 in 2014/15 while unexpected deaths among mental health patients has risen from 48 to 82 in the same period.

Former health minister Norman Lamb, who obtained the figures, compared the crisis to the scandal at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust where hundreds of patients died from substandard care.

Unions pointed to annual savings targets of up to seven per cent as a leading contributor to the rise.

The trust is forecast to break even this year, unlike the hospital trusts in the region who are projected for multi-million deficits, but bosses did implement “business continuity” controls last year in a move to keep spending in check.