AN NHS trust has spent more than £1 million in the last year on the redundancies of 23 people.

Dorset HealthCare, which provides mental health and community health services across the county, spent £1.27 million on redundancy packages in 2018/19.

A spokesman for the trust said the positions were mostly management roles and that the move was aimed at freeing up money for its frontline work.

Figures published in a report to its board show the amount it paid in redundancies increased almost 15-fold compared to the £82,000 it spent in 2017/18.

The most paid out to one person last year was £224,000 while four others received packages of between £100,000 and £150,000.

The report says that no directors were made redundant but that 20 of the 23 redundancies were management roles.

A trust spokesman said the other three were “non-clinical” roles and the moves were made as part of a restructuring of its community hospitals.

Last year, Wareham Hospital closed all 16 of its beds due to a shortage of nurses but said it did not anticipate having to make any redundancies because it had vacancies elsewhere.

Only three redundancy packages paid out by the trust last year were less than £10,000.

The trust spokesman said it had not paid out any money on top of what it was required to contractually.

A spokesman for the trust said: “These redundancies were made as part of our ongoing review of non-clinical and support posts to release money for reinvestment in front-line clinical services.

“In total, 23 posts were made redundant, of which 20 were management roles and three were non-clinical roles associated with changes at one of our community hospitals.

“All of the payments are contractual payments and no discretionary payments have been made.”

One of the changes made at the trust last year was the appointment of a new chief executive with Eugine Yafele at the turn of the year.

He replaced Ron Shields who retired after five years at the trust.