THE argument that proper salaries and bonus packages should be paid to attract talented executives for NHS hospitals is a sound one.

The Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUHT) has a budget in excess of £800m.

It is a major organisation employing 11,000 staff and it would be inconceivable that you could hire on the cheap to shave a few thousand off its multi-million budget.

But here’s the rub. That multi-million pound budget is public money and as such we have a right to know in detail how that money, collected through taxes, is spent.

When it comes to bonuses, however, OUHT argues that the employment contracts of staff should remain private. It will reveal pay scales, but not salaries and it refuses to explain why its executives have had substantial bonus payments and exactly how much they are for.

As we report today, those executives have received bonuses totalling £119,243, substantially up on the £74,067 awarded the previous year.

The trust’s explanation as to how they achieved these bonuses is, frankly, gobbledygook. Apparently they “delivered compassionate excellence”, which included “embedding the trust’s new values into everyday action and maintained a focus on patient safety”.

Oh, for an attack of plain English in our NHS! All we can be certain about is they did not get a bonus because of continuing bed-blocking problems.

The trust rejects any accusations of being secretive over the bonus payouts and says it has a duty of confidentiality to the executives concerned.

We beg to differ, as no doubt will many hard-pressed taxpayers and hospital staff.