A quarter of the staff laid off by the NHS at a cost of £ 2 billion is rehired

Nearly a quarter of the NHS workers laid off in the last decade have been rehired by the health service.

New shocking figures reveal that 35,827 employees have received spinoffs equivalent to £ 1.99 billion since 2010, but 8,192 have been taken back.

This means that the NHS may have paid 500 million pounds in severance pay to people who have simply joined the service. This figure is sufficient to fund the salaries of more than 20,000 nurses for one year.

Chris Reed, former NHS North of Tyne general manager, received a £ 345,000 severance payment when the body was removed in 2013, but returned to the NHS within three months as acting CEO of the NHS Trust Leeds Teaching Hospital. His wife, Karen Straughair, was also fired with a payment of £ 605,000 before landing a post of Relief Director at the same hospital as her husband.

The "revolving door" scandal has seen some managers pay six figures and create new jobs in the NHS a few weeks later.

Many layoffs were caused by the controversial reshuffle of the NHS bureaucracy under former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who saw primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic regional health authorities (SHAs) replaced by more than 200 groups of commissioners.

Last night, Jonathan Ashworth, Secretary-General of the US Health Union, said: "This money spent on severance pay for staff – many of whom have been reinstated as a result of government-imposed changes – is simply staggering in a time when the NHS is facing dire financial difficulties.

"Patients whose operations have been canceled or who have been languishing on a cart will be disgusted with this incompetence."

In the picture, the health department official, Alan Perkins, received a salary of £ 306,000 from his IT post in 2013, but was immediately appointed to a new social security officer post of 150,000 £ with retirement benefits of £ 172,000

Conservatives claim to have their hands tied because of generous layoff rules introduced under the previous Labor government.

The figures, published in response to a parliamentary question from Mr Ashworth, show that 2,834 NHS workers have been paid more than £ 100,000 since April 2010. Of this number, 393 were over £ 200,000.

Among them, Alan Perkins, a former health ministry official, received a payment of £ 306,538 when he was fired from his "computer scientist" post in 2013. But he later became Acting Director of the Health and Social Protection Information Center (HSCIC). ) – now called NHS Digital – for a year and was paid just under £ 150,000, plus £ 172,000 of pension benefits.

Karen Straughair, 55, received £ 605,000 and her husband, Chris Reed, 62, raised £ 345,000 when the two NHS organizations they ran on Tyneside were abolished in 2013.

In less than three months, the two had found a job at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust – Mr. Reed as Interim Executive Director and Ms. Straughair as Director of Turnaround. They have both evolved since.

There is no indication that either of them has broken a rule or acted inappropriately.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said: "Expenses related to layoffs have dropped significantly since 2010, with almost a third being taken on a voluntary basis. In addition, in 2015, we limited layoff programs for the highest-paying NHS staff, freeing up more money for front-line services. "