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It was also revealed that senior manager Andrew Morgan is entitled to £490,000 in redundancy payments despite being continually employed by the NHS.

NHS Norfolk has set aside the money in their final accounts for Mr Morgan, who was the chief executive of a cluster of trusts. He is now the interim chief executive of the East of England Ambulance Service, where he is reportedly paid between £135,000 and £150,000 per year.

Yesterday it was revealed that a married couple received payouts of almost £1 million when they were made redundant from their posts as NHS managers only to be re-employed by the health service a few months later.

The payments have all been within the rules, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of those involved.

But there has been increasing pressure on the NHS over the payouts at a time when budgets are tight.

The redundancies arose when the 161 statutory bodies which were responsible for buying services for the NHS were replaced with 211 new clinical commissioning groups.

The Government should have capped "golden goodbyes" and reclaimed money from those who were re-employed, critics have claimed.

Labour have blamed the Coalition for wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on the reforms, while ministers claim they were forced into the decision by contracts drawn up by the previous government.

After the reforms came in in April the National Audit Office estimated that 10,000 people had lost their jobs at a total cost of £430 million, but one in five of NHS staff made redundant had been re-employed by the health service.

The NAO estimated that 44 very senior managers were made redundant at an average cost of £277,273.

New figures released by the Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities suggests that more than 50 staff received in excess of £100,000.