Executives at six struggling health boards in Scotland, which have formal government “oversight,” are receiving high performance appraisals, according to a report by BBC Scotland. The boards are being monitored due to poor performance in areas like finance and leadership. Nonetheless, many NHS executives are receiving superior or outstanding performance appraisals, which are then tied to pay raises. The Scottish government claims that executive appraisals are “robustly assessed,” and that it is possible for bosses at a struggling board to still deliver superior or outstanding performance given the range of individual responsibilities for executives in the NHS.
The appraisal data was released to BBC Scotland under freedom of information laws, but individual scores were not disclosed. Across all responding boards, the majority of the executives were deemed “fully acceptable,” and no one’s performance was ranked as “unacceptable.” The performance mark is tied to the potential pay increases of executives, ranging from 0% for an unacceptable appraisal to 3% for an outstanding one. The data relates to the period of the Covid pandemic when the NHS was under intense pressure.
Health boards with formal Scottish government oversight are often referred to as being in “special measures” but are subject to the “NHS Board Performance Escalation Framework,” ranked from one to five, with five being the worst, and it relates to specific problem areas. Stage three and above is when the government formally puts in place support and oversight. A recent review of senior management failings at NHS Forth Valley claimed that these problems were not reflected in the performance appraisal reports of the individuals.
NHS Tayside and NHS Dumfries and Galloway, which have Scottish government oversight of their mental health performance, refused to release appraisal scores, citing personal information as the reason. NHS Orkney, which has government oversight due to concern over its financial management, NHS Shetland, and NHS Western Isles claimed they could not release the data because of potential identification issues for the individual executives
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More