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Can we just note that Jim Easton had actually helped implement the management cuts and come out on top via HR processes your readers have previously criticised in general terms if not their application to him. He's perfectly entitled to move but the notion that he owes no loyalty to the NHS is risible. Equally whether he jumped or was pushed his departure does seem, to use Alistair's word, somehow dishonourable. The service made him; he had a major responsibility to help bring it through its current challenges; and he had spent months encouraging others without his job security to put their all into supporting him and the service to meet those challenges. Now he is going to a less demanding role because,one must surmise, he was made a better offer and/or he had less confidence in the NHS successfully addressing its challenges than he had been communicating. Nothing improper but decent and honourable? To those not party to what may have been a difficult wrestle of conscience, it's impossible to know. However, I hope people in Jim Easton's position would equally understand if some, perhaps ill-informed, observers are left with no more than a hint of such a question in their mind.
Finally, turning to the 'technical' dimension, what do people live on during the year between jobs? Is a golden handshake permitted to be paid up front? Presumably, there can be no question of a golden goodbye of any kind from the NHS? What contact is permitted between the individual and their new employers over that time and how on earth can the rules, whatever they are, be enforced? Just some questions of general applicability I've never really thought of before but prompted by Alistair's excellent, thought provoking and dispassionate column