NHS consultant is paid £375,000 on top of their salary finds BBC investigation

An NHS hospital consultant earned a whopping £375,000 in overtime pay last year while many others routinely got paid the equivalent of £250 per hour. 

A shortage of doctors has forced British hospitals to pay special overtime pay rates to consultants.

An investigation by the BBC revealed that spending on high-cost overtime had risen by more than a third in the past two years.

In 2015 -16, £168m was spent, up from £125m in 2013-14, according to figures from a Freedom of Information request.

A shortage of consultants has forced NHS trusts around the country to pay premium overtime pay to fill shifts. One NHS consultant earned a whopping £375,000 in overtime pay last year on top of basic salary (file photo)

One consultant at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust earned £374,999 on top of their salary.

Another at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust made £205,408 and a third at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust pocketed £183,204. 

Consultants were being paid around £600 in overtime for a four-hour shift but some were even earning £1,000 for four hours’ work.

• ‘Perverse’ consultant gynaecologist who fondled female…
  

  From a woman who performed a Caesarean on herself to a man…
  

  Robots are just as effective at removing prostate cancer as…
  

  Junk food addict who wore XXXXXL clothes battled through…
  

The investigation found two in three trusts paid at least one consultant more than £50,000 last year, with one in four paying £100,000 or more. 

The average amount paid in high-cost overtime was £13,356 per consultant, who earn an average basic salary of £89,000. 

The specialties most likely to receive it were radiologists, surgeons, urologists, anaesthetists and gastroenterologists, the BBC reports. 

In 2015 -16, trusts spent £168m on high-cost overtime, up from £125m in 2013-14, according to figures from a Freedom of Information request (file photo)

The BBC received figures from 114 of the 186 trusts and health boards.

It focused on high-cost overtime rather than doctors picking up extra shifts at normal pay. 

Several hospitals said they had no choice to pay premium rates because of the shortage of consultants.

Professor Mark Pugh, medical director of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, admitted 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.’

The British Medical Association said payments were made because there are not enough doctors and hospitals are under pressure to meet targets

But Andrew Foster, chief executive of Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, said premium overtime pay was not right, which was why they had stopped paying it since 2010.

He 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 in England said it hoped that a renegotiation of the consultant contract would address the issue, including removing the right for consultants to refuse to do non-emergency work at weekends.

A spokesman said: ‘Consultants do a vital job and should be properly rewarded, but this analysis shows why we are working with the BMA to replace a unique evening and weekend “opt-out” in the existing contract. 

‘This will allow us all to promise patients urgent and emergency care of a consistently high standard across the week, and – as the hospitals themselves say – make better use of operating theatres while reducing big overtime bills.

‘We are helping to ensure the NHS will have over 11,000 more doctors, including consultants and GPs by 2020’.

But Keith Brent, the British Medical Association consultants leader, denied the situation was linked to the current contract and said it was just due to doctor shortages.

He said: ‘There are also lots of consultants working extra hours for nothing or for normal pay. 

‘These payments are made because there simply are not enough doctors and hospitals are under pressure to meeting waiting time targets.’