SIR – According to reports, Sir David Nicholson, head of NHS, is on a salary of £211,000 with a bonus of £20,000.

His £1.9 million pension will bring in £110,000 a year.

It is reported he has claimed £48,900 expenses and it is thought that £6,000 of that – in first class rail travel on long weekend business trips – was in fact for visits to his wife who lives in Birmingham (she is on a salary of £155,000 as chief executive of the Birmingham Children’s Hospital).

What a pity he could not afford to pay that £6,000 from his meagre salary, though it is not surprising that he will be called to resign.

Yet Worcester’s lowest paid council workers, according to the report by Tom Edwards (Worcester News, January 31), may not get a proposed offer of £7.45 an hour living wage, as opposed to the present rate of £6.19 legally enforced, because members could not agree and despite 140 other employers adopting the scheme. It is a cruel world.

PHIL PEGLER

Worcester