New figures have disclosed that some health service chief executives will retire with annual gold-plated payouts worth up to £110,000 despite the system currently under severe financial strain.
The revelations, which compare to the annual pension of just £7000 for an average NHS worker, come as many private pension schemes are falling.
Separate statistics also show that more than 2600 senior managers of hospitals and health trusts are paid £250,000 a year – £107,500 more than the salary paid to David Cameron, the Prime Minister.
It also comes amid heavy cutbacks throughout the NHS as frontline services are hit by budget cuts. PE
According to the new figures, the chief executives of ten strategic health authorities in England have gold-plated final salary pension pots worth between £1.2million and almost £2.6million.
The biggest belongs to Sir Neil McKay of the East of England authority, and is currently valued at £2.59million, reports suggested.
He is currently paid between £230,000 and £235,000, and he is said to have earned an annual retirement of between £105,000 and £110,000.
Sir Ian Carruthers, from the South West strategic health authority, has an estimated pension pot valued at £2.58 million.
He is expected to receive between £100,000 and £105,000 when he retires.
The chief executives, who were unavailable for comment, will contribute about 8.5 per cent of their salaries to their pension, with the he remainder coming from NHS budgets.
Last year, a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global accountancy firm, estimated that, on average, private sector workers would need to put 37pc of their salary into their pension to match the retirement income paid to a public sector worker on a similar wage.
The new figures come just weeks after the Department of Health disclosed lucrative bonuses paid to senior executives had doubled in five years.
Officials admitted that some executives earning six-figure salaries were paid an additional £27,500.
Daniel Poulter, Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, said officials needed to “curb this kind of excessive spending on management”.
“It is completely unacceptable that under Labour, senior NHS managers, some of whom were already paid salaries ten times more than hard-working nurses, received annual pay increases of around 7 per cent when front-line NHS staff received only 1.8 per cent,” the former hospital doctor told the Daily Mail.
“The Government is investing £11.5billion in the NHS over this parliament, but we urgently need to curb this kind of excessive spending on management.”
Strategic health authorities oversee the work of hospitals and primary care trusts in their area.
As part of the Government’s controversial health reforms, they are due to be abolished.
The Daily Telegraph disclosed on Monday that patients and members of the public may sit on official bodies overseeing doctors and hospitals under revised plans to reorganise the NHS being drawn up by the Government.
The recommendation — intended to answer criticism that the new GP-led bodies were unaccountable and at risk of conflicts of interest — is expected to be one of a number made by a panel of experts reviewing the Government’s health legislation after David Cameron ordered a “pause” amid public concern over the scheme.
The Liberal Democrats are campaigning for many parts of the reforms to be abandoned or watered down.