Health board wrongly paid staff thousands and now wants them to work for free to pay it back

A health board mistakenly paid staff thousands of pounds and now wants them to pay it back or to do unpaid overtime. WalesOnline understands more than £100,000 was paid out to a group of just over a dozen members of staff who work at the Prince Charles Hospital in Cwm Taf Morgannwg UHB.

The chunks of payments which varied from around £5,000 to over £30,000 each were made to staff members who work in the Merthyr Tydfil hospital's theatre department. The pay was given as a form of "protection pay", which is a payment made to "top up" an employees average earnings in order to prevent them from being disadvantaged if they have been displaced or relocated due to an organisational change.

The staff members were given the pay due to a change to the way they worked that was planned to start in January. The planned change required more staff members, but the number of vacancies was never filled, and the changes went ahead anyway and staff who were given protection pay were working overtime.

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However, staff have since been told that they were wrongly given the protection pay, as you cannot have protection pay and work overtime, and they have been told they need to pay it back. This has left staff members feeling stressed and upset, as many no longer have the money that they believed, at the time, was rightly paid to them.

WalesOnline understands that the staff members have been given two options to return the money, either pay it back in full, or work overtime without being paid for it. This has put staff in an extremely difficult situation where they are faced with working "for free", or paying back money that they no longer have. For the latest health and Covid news, sign up to our newsletter here

Serious questions have been raised about how it was paid in the first place as questions were raised at that point of payment. There are also concerns about the manner in which the problem has been communicated since, with worries that the stress it is causing can have an impact on patient safety.

A spokesperson for Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board said: “We are aware that for some of our theatres staff at Prince Charles Hospital, a payment in lieu of shift pattern changes has been processed incorrectly. As soon as this mistake was identified, we prioritised talking with those affected, as well as their trade union representatives, to find a way forward. We fully appreciate the impact that this payment error has had on individuals, and as such, we have involved colleagues in every step of this ongoing conversation.

“We have conducted an investigation into this matter, and have already taken steps to minimise the risk of a similar occurrence.”