MORE than 40 people working for the NHS trust which provides mental health and learning disability services in York and Selby are earning more than £100,000.

Forty three people at the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT) earn more than £100,000, and 58 earn more than £75,000.

The highest earner at the trust – which covers York, Leeds, Selby, Tadcaster, Easingwold and parts of North Yorkshire – is a consultant earning almost £183,000, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show.

The average salary at the trust, which has about 3,280 employees, 842 employed in the York and Selby area, is £28,667. Among the top ten salaries are eight consultants earning between £182,791 and £145,936.

Chris Butler, chief executive of LYPFT, earned between £150,000 and £155,000 in 2012/13, a rise of £5,000 on the preceding year, and another person, whose job title and name has not been revealed, earns £165,934. A trust spokesman said: “The vast majority of salaries towards the higher end of the scale are paid to consultant medical staff; these are in accordance with nationally set terms and conditions and are not decided locally.”

Of those earning more than £100,000, 39 have a clinical or medical role, including psychologists, doctors, consultants and pharmacists. Four with a non-clinical background earn more than £100,000. Of the 58 earning between £75,000 and £100,000, 54 have a medical or clinical background and four do not.

Dr Mick Phythian, a spokesman for York Defend Our NHS, said he hoped all employees would receive fair pay rises to ensure the highly-paid are not receiving rises when the less well paid are not.

He said: “It is also suspected that with the recent NHS restructuring many more high-paid management positions have been created (as the numbers seem to indicate) resulting in less funds being available for the actual medical and mental health services.”

The Press previously reported that five bosses at York Hospital received pay rises totalling £85,000 from 2012-13 as the gap between the highest and lowest paid hospital workers widened.

Dr Alastair Turnbull, the medical director of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, last year received a rise of about £15,000, taking his annual earnings to between £225,000 and £230,000. Patrick Crowley, chief executive, received a pay rise of about £30,000, taking his annual earnings to between £190,000 and £195,000. The median salary of hospital staff dropped from £25,611 to £24,566.

The hospital trust said executive director salaries were reviewed following the merger of York and Scarborough trusts when the “increased size and complexity of the organisation, and the demands this placed on them” were taken into consideration.