NHS doctor pockets £375k overtime pay on top of salary as fees soar amid ‘staffing shortages’
Growing pressures are leading UK hospitals to rely on premium overtime pay to get consultants to do extra work
HOSPITALS increased their spending on premium-rate overtime for consultants by one third last year – with one doctor pocketing £375,000 on top of their annual salary.
Some trusts pay the senior medics up to £1,000 for just four hours work, with many others paying £600 for the same length of shift.
That is three or four times the usual rate.
Hospitals blame a shortage of consultants whose basic salary is around £89,000.
Figures revealed to the BBC by 114 of the 186 NHS trusts and health boards show the premium-rate total rose to £168million from £125million the previous year.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals said it paid a doc an extra £374,999 for “significantly more hours than usual at an enhanced rate”.
It said the doctor had done “significantly more hours than usual at an enhanced rate” because of a shortage of consultants and high demand.
Two in three trusts paid at least one consultant more than £50,000 in enhanced-rate overtime last year, with one in four paying £100,000 or more
But they said the rising cost seen in recent years was down to shortages of consultants and rising demand.
Professor Mark Pugh, medical director of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which was responsible for paying the £375,000, acknowledged the situation was “clearly not sustainable”.
He said: “There is an acute shortage of consultants for some of these specialities and as we have not been able to source the additional staff we need as demand has risen, we have paid overtime to the existing workforce to deliver extra clinics so that patients can be seen and treated as quickly as possible.”
Andrew Foster, chief executive of Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, which stopped paying premium overtime rates in 2010, said: “I don’t think it is very defensible to pay a huge premium to one group of staff and not to other groups of staff.
“No other member of staff gets triple pay for doing extra shifts.”
The Department of Health said it wanted to renegotiate consultant contracts. But the British Medical Association said it was a “clear sign” of shortages.