THE NHS and local government share a bad habit of financially featherbedding their executives.

The latest, almost astonishing, example has emerged from Southend Hospital.

Departing chief executive Jacqueline Totterdell was paid a full year’s salary, about £175,000, for half a year’s work.

On the face of it Mrs Totterdell simply made the decision to move to a similar, presumably equally or betterpaid job, at another hospital.

Southend Hospital’s explanation does not pass muster. According to the hospital’s chairman, she “received six months pay to enable both her and the trust to move on sooner.” That is hardly a reason why a hospital boss should be paid a large sum of public money for not doing her job. In the eyes of the public, and of other NHS workers, it flies in the face of reason.

Yet this payment is symptomatic of the way those in the highest ranks of the NHS seem to live in a different world from workers.

Whether they are nurses, doctors or hospital porters, most health service employees are expected to work their notice out before they depart – in other words, to do the job they are paid to do.

Yet a hospital manager seems able to buck this principle.

Southend presents a perfect study of how large amounts of money are wasted on the bureaucratic side of hospitals, money that should go to the medical front line.