Former nursing boss still on payroll

The former director of nursing at Stafford Hospital is still being paid her £100,000 salary despite her bosses stating she left the post in November.

Dr Helen Moss took up a new role with NHS East Midlands that month, then in December Sir Stephen Moss, the chairman of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, told a governors' meeting that she was no longer employed by the hospital.

He has now been forced to write to the governors to apologise after it emerged Dr Moss is being paid by Mid Staffordshire.

She is still an employee and is officially on secondment to the NHS East Midlands.

Although Stafford Hospital is still paying her salary the trust has confirmed that she will not return to the hospital once the secondment is complete.

Dr Moss was in charge of nursing at the hospital during the time investigators described standards as "appalling".

Dr Moss is responsible for training and organising the numbers of nurses needed at hospitals across Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

In March last year the trust put out a press release announcing that former chief executive Martin Yeates had stood down from his role. In fact he was still employed on his £169,000 salary but was not fulfilling any of his duties.

He was later suspended on full pay during an investigation and then resigned before any disciplinary action could be taken against him.