A debt-ridden NHS Trust paid lawyers nearly £12,000 for their advice on how to manage the exit of a former boss who got a £243,000 pay-off, it has been revealed.

The eight board members of the Primary Care Trust who decided to spend almost a quarter of a million pounds on the pay-off can also be unmasked, following a Freedom of Information disclosure.

They were Mary Colato, Dr John Clarke, Christopher Hix, Tove Steen Sorensen Bentham, Walter James, Brian Eley, Belinda Giles and David Allam.

Public health director Iheadi Onwukwe, 41, got a £243,000 pay-off last year after working for the Trust for just three weeks.

He was reported to have been paid a salary while on "gardening leave" for almost three years before quitting his post and being given the pay-off.

More details of the controversial payment have been released following a request under the Freedom of Information Act to East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust.

It can be revealed that the eight members of the renumeration committee who made the decision were led by chairman Mary Colato.

The board meeting took place on April 20, 2005, before Dr Onwukwe finally quit the Trust the next month. He was appointed in September 2002.

The release under the Freedom of Information Act also revealed the trust paid out a further £11,854 for legal advice from London firm Capsticks Solicitors.

But the Trust refused to disclose letters referring to any conflict or disagreement between it and Dr Onwukwe.

Information was denied on the grounds that "such letters will contain personal data relating to this individual and possibly others".

Dr Onwukwe was an employee of Eastbourne Downs Primary Care Trust which has since merged into the East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust following a NHS re-organisation.

The doctor's huge pay-off was originally detailed in the East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust annual report for 2005-2006.

It stated: "During the year the PCT paid a former executive director compensation for loss of office totalling £243,000 through an agreed legal agreement."

Following news of the pay-out it has since emerged that former Trust's chief executive Gina Brocklehurst received £230,000 to step down as part of the re-organisation.

New chief executive Nick Yeo has refused to reveal further details of the pay-offs and has refused to comment on the matter.

Lewes MP Norman Baker, who first revealed the pay-off, has attacked the management of the PCT. "It is just an incredible and grotesque waste of public money and I will be raising the matter with the Health Secretary.

"Someone should pay for this and it should not be the taxpayer. I think this shows how endemic the problem is of the NHS writing out blank cheques with our money.

"If a private company behaved like this they would be bankrupt by now and its quite wrong for the trust to hush this up.

"It is public money and they are accountable for what they do. There can be no justification whatsoever for this pay-off."