Paid more than the Prime Minister. But is it excessive?

The Health Service Journal is the trade rag of for managers in the British National Health Service. So it’s pretty much obligatory reading for anyone like me who’s working with people in that area.

Today I was struck by the headline ‘NHS has 6,500 staff paid more than PM’. Obviously this is intended to be shocking: it's a reversal of the natural order that so many NHS people should be paid more than the British Prime Minister. But surely that depends on what they do for their pay?

Now I know that many of those highly-paid healthcare staff are doctors, who can do some pretty major damage from time to time. Surely, however, no-one could be laying waste about him to quite the same extent as our present Prime Minister, David Cameron? And with such impunity?

After all, when Mahel Goel and John Roberts cut the wrong kidney out of a patient in South Wales in 2000, they faced trial for manslaughter - and though they were cleared of the criminal charge, they still faced disciplinary action by their professional body.

Cuts just as ill-advised are about to be launched by the government shortly. But what action can we take against Cameron? Wouldn't it be nice if we could get him struck off? Sadly, that remains just a dream.

If nothing else, though, we can at least stop getting worried about people being paid more than him. They may be doing less damage. Perhaps the real scandal is that he's still being paid so much.