MONEY to fund 'golden goodbyes' that enable some staff at Taunton's Musgrove Park Hospital to leave with almost a year's salary tax-free should go on frontline services instead, it is claimed.

The initiative, which all 4,000-plus employees are invited to apply for, comes as the trust running the hospital recruits dozens of overseas nurses - although it is unlikely to allow pay-offs for ward nurses.

Bosses say the nationally-approved Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS) will help repair a black hole in finances at the trust, which has an annual budget of £246.7million.

Musgrove will either fill vacancies created by staff leaving with workers in other roles or leave posts vacant.

The size of the payouts will range from three months' salary after a year's service up to 11 months' pay for 22 years' or more service, with the first £30,000 tax-free.

Musgrove deputy chief executive Peter Lewis said: "We continue to face a significant financial challenge this year and have plans in place to work differently to continue to improve quality, safety and patient experience, while also reducing our costs or being more efficient.

“However, we know that we need to do even more to save money and so have decided to offer the MARS.

"In launching the scheme at the start of June we have been clear with all colleagues that this scheme is not aimed at our nursing staff and that it is highly unlikely an application from a ward nurse would be successful.

"We are also clear that this is a personal choice for colleagues, with no-one under pressure to apply.

“MARS benefits employees in that those wishing to leave, in agreement with the hospital, will receive a severance payment which is calculated on their length of service.

“The hospital also benefits, as the scheme then creates job vacancies which can be closed, or filled by the redeployment of staff from other jobs within the hospital where the post is seen as crucial to delivering patient care.

"As this is not a redundancy scheme, it enables the organisation to reduce the number of posts, and therefore the pay-bill, in a more flexible way.”

A member of staff, who asked not to be named, said: "We're already under lots of pressure - you've seen the stories about A&E, well there are similar issues in other departments.

"Fewer staff will make things worse. We should be investing more in the NHS, not cutting corners."

Harry Davies, campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said taxpayers will be alarmed at their money funding "golden goodbyes".

He added: "Redundancies should result in a reduction in the wage bill, but any large pay-off will mean that savings made will be undermined.

"Trusts need to make sure they are not offering overly generous contracts in the first place because taxpayers expect their hard earned cash to go towards frontline services and not bloated pay-offs."