A DISGRACED health boss who resigned following a scathing report into the way he managed a Sussex hospital is to receive a cash

pay-off.

But new senior management, who publicly promised to introduce an open and honest approach to restore public confidence in the hospital, are refusing to reveal how much he is getting.

They have been criticised for not disclosing the amount disgraced Eastbourne District General Hospital chief executive Clive Uren will receive in his golden handshake, which is funded with public money.

Until this week he was earning £78,000 a year plus an £8,000 annual company car allowance and £3,000 pension contribution.

Management

Mr Uren and Eastbourne Hospitals NHS Trust chairman John Barkshire stepped down over a report which slated levels of nursing care and criticised management that left nurses and the public in the dark.

Mr Barkshire, who did not work full-time at the hospital, is not entitled to any payment.

New chief executive Alan Randall said: "We are committed to openness and public accountability and I understand the argument that this should be in the public domain.

"But I also have to consider an individual employee's right to privacy.

"The advice at the moment is to act on the side of caution. We must decide which is the right way to act.

"What we are able to say is that legal advice was taken and that the deal made with Mr Uren, which was approved by an audit team, was one of minimum expense to the NHS."

But MPs and relatives of patients who died at the hospital have hit back.

Roy Freeman, whose wife Pauline, 54, of Little Common, Bexhill, bled to death after a routine hysterectomy on an EDGH ward staffed by just one qualified nurse and three auxiliaries, said: "Any issue concerning taxpayers' money should be made public and I think people ought to know how much Mr Uren received."

Lewes MP Norman Baker, whose constituency includes Polegate, near Eastbourne,

has called for the pay off sum to be made

public.

He has written to Barbara Stocking, head of the South East regional office of the NHS Executive, which conducted the inspection of the EDGH and produced the report.

His letter says: "I am now writing to ask you whether you are prepared to make public the amount of money Mr Uren has received by way of a severance payment, given the significant and justified public interest in this whole matter.

"We are talking about public money and public accountability. MPs who lose their seats receive an element of severance pay and details of this are made public."

Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson said: "I think the public should be told this figure. MPs have to reveal such information - why shouldn't Mr Uren?"

However, Walter James, chairman of Eastbourne, Seaford and Wealden Community Health Council, said: "MPs may huff and puff but I do not think the public have a right to know this information."

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