FIVE bosses at York Hospital received pay rises totalling £85,000 last year as the gap between the highest and lowest paid hospital workers widened, The Press can reveal.

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. He earned 9.3 times the average hospital salary – up from a ratio of 8.5 in 2011/12. The median salary of hospital staff dropped from £25,611 to £24,566 at the same time as the top bosses’ pay increased.

Patrick Crowley, chief executive, received a pay rise of about £30,000, taking his annual earnings to between £190,000 and £195,000. The director of finance, chief nurse and director of HR received pay rises totalling £40,000.

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

A spokesman said the merger allowed a single board of directors, saving £500,000 a year, even taking into account last year’s increase. He said pay was in line with similar organisations.

The campaign group York Defend Our NHS said it was “appalled” with individual increases at a time of “supposed austerity”.

Dr Mick Phythian, from the group, said: “The diktat that ‘we’re all in this together’ obviously doesn’t apply to that very small group, when the average pay of the rest of the staff is actually falling.”

He said senior bosses should show leadership by accepting the pay freezes and cuts endured by other staff.

York councillor Paul Doughty, vice-chair of the city council’s health scrutiny committee, said there appeared to be similarities to senior pay rises at the council, and said: “That sends a completely wrong message to the rest of the workforce at the hospital and across the public sector in general which will have had modest, if any, pay increases.”

Last month it was confirmed more than 100 trust workers were facing pay cuts of up to £5,000 as a cost-cutting measure.

York and North Yorkshire’s primary care trust left debts of £12 million which have been inherited by the clinical commissioning groups. Mr Crowley – who has previously warned debt has left North Yorkshire “on the brink of a health crisis” – said the trust has saved up to £75 million over the past three years and may have to cut up to £30 million over the next year.

The highest member of medical staff working for the trust last year was a consultant earning £263,317.

A hospital trust spokesman said: “Hospital staff (excluding doctors and directors) have a national pay system called Agenda for Change, and inflation-related pay uplifts are agreed each year. In addition to this, the majority of staff on the Agenda for Change system receive an annual incremental pay increase as they progress along the pay scales. Doctors also have their pay determined nationally. Last year most NHS staff received an uplift to their pay of around one per cent.”

A Freedom of Information Act request to the trust found 26 staff with a medical background earn more than £100,000 a year. Sixteen non-medical staff and 287 medical staff earn more than £75,000.

The trust operates nine hospital sites including in York, Scarborough, Bridlington, Whitby, Malton and Norton, Selby and Easingwold. It employs 8,387 staff.