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dipsydoodle

(42,239 posts) Sat Mar 17, 2012, 06:16 PM Mar 2012

NHS pays £20,000 a week for a doctor

Doctors are being hired at rates of £20,000 a week by hospitals to cover NHS staff shortages caused by European rules, an investigation by the Sunday Telegraph has found.

In some cases the amounts being paid would be the equivalent to a doctor earning an annual salary of almost £1 million.

And some doctors were rewarded not just for the hours they worked, but for all the time they were on call – including when they were sleeping.

Our investigation discloses how hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on agency doctors so that hospitals can comply with the European Working Time Directive, which limits the number of hours medics can work, and found that 80 per cent of hospital trusts which provided figures admitted spending more than £1,000 per shift on medical cover; :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9150772/NHS-pays-20000-a-week-for-a-doctor.html

3 replies

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NHS pays £20,000 a week for a doctor (Original Post) dipsydoodle Mar 2012 OP

The Torygraph intaglio Mar 2012 #1

Or, more realistically ikri Mar 2012 #2

There's no shortage of work for agency nurses dipsydoodle Mar 2012 #3

intaglio

(8,170 posts)

1. The Torygraph

Reply to dipsydoodle (Original post)

Sat Mar 17, 2012, 06:59 PM

Mar 2012

They will have manipulated the figures to further 2 agendas:
1) Europe is hateful
2) The NHS is bad

and that's it

ikri

(1,127 posts)

2. Or, more realistically

Reply to dipsydoodle (Original post)

Sun Mar 18, 2012, 06:25 AM

Mar 2012

Hospitals are paying agencies to hire locum doctors to cover gaps in care. Agency rates are known to be exceptionally high (agency nurses can earn more than a regular nurse but with no guarantees about where or how often they'll work) but they're useful at filling holes in planning. The doctors won't be earning £20k per week, they'll probably earn a higher hourly rate than the equivalent permanent staff member, the rest will go to the agency employing them.

If they want to avoid paying temporary staff huge sums they need to hire more permanent staff to fill those gaps.

dipsydoodle

(42,239 posts)

3. There's no shortage of work for agency nurses

Reply to ikri (Reply #2)

Sun Mar 18, 2012, 07:00 AM

Mar 2012

assuming where I am to be representative. They earn more on agency work and are more able to control their own hours which some prefer. Use of agency nurses is part of the planning for the time being. I think the £20k / week figure for doctors must've assumed a full weeks work which don't necessarily follow - its an equivalent figure as you mentioned.

Its easy to sort all this out - just increase employers and employees NH rates. The problem with that however is that it acts as a deterrent to private sector employers employing more and probably wouldn't go down to well with employees either. Maybe they could just increase the NH rate above the upper earnings level. There's plenty of room for maneuver with the NH scales.

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