STAND-IN DOCS’ £120 PER HOUR
Pay cap shattered by crisis
NHS locums are being paid more than £120 an hour to cover a staffing crisis.
Four in five shifts by standin docs are now higher than the pay cap.
Wages for agency staff were capped in 2015 by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt at around £76 for a consultant and £36 for a junior doctor. But new data shows 80% of shifts between October and December last year were paid above the cap, up from 64% in the previous three months.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Regularly paying for locums is an expensive way for the NHS to plug gaps in its rotas and suggests staff levels are not being managed appropriately.
“Of course there will be times when the hospitals will need short-term cover or temporary assistance but all spending has to represent value for money.
“Questions now need to be raised about the point of having a cap that is clearly being ignored.” Some of the biggest staff shortages are in A&E.
Taj Hassan, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “We have ended up paying over the odds to paper over the cracks.
“There are many systems, some very good, that are having to break the agency cap because they are keeping the service just about afloat and the pressure on staffing levels is intense.”