£100,000 a year nurse wins public support

News that an NHS nurse has broken the £100,000 salary barrier has been welcomed by the public.

The Sunday Times yesterday revealed that Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust paid a nurse consultant up to £105,000 in the last financial year.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act showed the unnamed nurse received a basic salary of £50,000, plus at least £50,000 in overtime payments, while dozens of nurses were earning more than £60,000 per year.

But messages of support flooded on to the newspaper's website.

One said: "Having been a cardiac patient of the NHS I am very happy to pay doctors and nurses these kind of salaries. The work they do is far more valuable than any MP or civil servant."

Another added: "I think it's great that there is some incentive to these highly trained individuals, who have to make considerable personal sacrifices to provide such a useful service. Perhaps if we treated our doctors and nurses better, we'd have a better functioning NHS, and more people would want this job."

One consultant at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust was paid between £225,000 and £229,000 in the last financial year. A consultant at Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, earned £228,000.