The pay bonanza at the top of the NHS

The colossal amounts of overtime being paid to consultants working in our hospitals has been revealed in a Freedom of Information request. One consultant working as part of the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust was paid more than £200,000 for the extra hours he had worked.

The staggering sum was paid on top of the average salary of £90,000 that consultants already collect each year.

Meanwhile dozens of public health chiefs are also raking in more than the Prime Minister’s salary each year.

Nobody doubts the vital work that consultants do, but across the country health trusts are facing a big squeeze on finances and growing budget deficits.

Earlier this year we saw junior doctors taking strike action due to a new contract which, they argued, saw them being told to work longer for lower pay.

Yet given the relatively lower pay given to NHS nurses and other staff, the fact that consultants can rack up so much in overtime payments is extraordinary.

The £200,000 payments show a bonanza at the top of the NHS and a gravy train at the top of public health quangos which seem to have been spared any of the hardship of colleagues further down the organisation’s food chain.

It is time for the issue of overtime payments to be addressed to give better value for taxpayers and perhaps even to help ease the pressures on NHS finances.