North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust has spent millions of pounds on a legal battle over equal pay, prompting accusations of wasting taxpayers’ money.
The trust, which runs Cumbria’s two main hospitals, has spent £3.3m on an eight-year dispute which unions hoped would iron out historic pay inequalities between men and women workers.
Union and hospital bosses reached an agreement in 2005, worth up to £300m for the 1,500 involved, but legal spending has continued to rise, the local News and Star reports.
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Dave Prentis, general secretary of public sector union Unison, said the trust’s spending, mainly on lawyers’ fees, was in shocking contrast to the earnings of the hospitals’ lower-paid members of staff.
Trust chief executive Carole Heatly said it is no longer dealing with claims, and that equal pay is now a national, rather than local, matter.
