Daily Mail

The NHS dentists who rake in £690k a year

1,794 earn six figures – and five are paid 5 times the PM’s salary

- By Ian Drury Home Affairs Correspond­ent

BRITAIN’S five highest-earning NHS dentists are paid average salaries of £690,000 a year.

The sum is almost five times the Prime Minister’s £142,500 pay packet – and comes as thousands of patients struggle to get on the books of NHS practices.

A further 11 dentists were paid between £400,000 and £500,000 and a total of 177 received more than £200,000. More than 1,600 pocketed £100,000-£200,000.

The figures lay bare the huge amounts of taxpayers’ money paid to dentists for NHS work, following Labour’s introducti­on of controvers­ial contracts in 2006.

Campaigner­s said the payments were ‘scandalous’ and ‘unacceptab­le’.

Under freedom of informatio­n laws, the NHS Business Services Authority was asked about the pensionabl­e pay of dentists who do NHS work. In 2012/13, the latest figures available, five practition­ers were paid more than £500,000.

They shared a total of about £3.4million – an average of £690,000. This comes on top of any money they take from treating patients pri- vately. Another 11 earned £400,000 to £499,999 from the NHS, 30 received £300,000 to £399,999, 131 pocketed £200,000 to £299,999 and 1,617 received £100,000 to £199,999.

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Associatio­n, said the rates of pay were ‘exorbitant’.

She added: ‘Investment is urgently needed on the front line where there is a desperate shortage of nurses [and] patients waiting for hours in A&E … when the NHS is under such huge financial pressure, this type of spending on huge salaries is unacceptab­le.’

It follows revelation­s in Thursday’s Mail that millions of pounds was being wasted on NHS prescripti­ons for suncream and toothpaste.

Yesterday, the Mail also exposed a £2,700 charge for cataract surgery at some hospitals – treble the cost to the health service – raising suspicions that patients are being ripped off. Patient Concern’s Roger Goss said: ‘This is scandalous. People will be shocked to hear the sums lining dentists’ pockets when it is almost impossible to find dental care on the NHS in some parts of the country. ‘There is something strange going on when the NHS will pay for gastric bands, suncream and hangover tablets yet it is so difficult to get dental treatment on it. It is almost perverse.’ Jonathan Isaby of the Taxpayers Alliance, which the Mail commission­ed to carry out the research, said the salaries show a ‘shameless public sector elite taking taxpayers for a ride’.

He added: ‘It is outrageous that these telephone-number salaries have been hidden from the people who pay them … Taxpayers expect the money they put in to the NHS to be spent on patients, not on bumper pay packets.’

The contracts brought in by Labour were designed to improve access to NHS dentistry. But patients are still struggling to get an appointmen­t.

The pay deals gave practition­ers a fixed sum for a set amount of work agreed at the start of the year, rather than separate incomes for the number of patients treated or procedures done.

Treatments are divided into three bands, from a simple check-up earning the dentist £25, to proce- dures such as fitting dentures and crowns, for roughly £300.

The value of a contract can run to millions of pounds, and some dentists run more than one practice so hold multiple contracts.

According to the Health and Social Care Informatio­n Centre, 21,500 dentists did NHS work in 2012/13, but most also do substantia­l amounts of private work.

The British Dental Associatio­n’s Mick Armstrong said the top-earning dentists ‘most likely own a group of practices’ or are specialist­s in their area.

But Tory Charlotte Leslie, who sat on the health select committee of MPs, said: ‘Most people will be absolutely stunned individual clinicians are getting such astronomic­al salaries on the NHS.’

A spokesman for NHS England said it contracts the vast majority of dental services from selfemploy­ed individual­s or companies, some of whom ‘earn income from a number of contracts’.

‘Taking taxpayers

for a ride’ CATARACT OPS: JUMP NHS QUEUE BY PAYING

Yesterday’s Daily Mail

 ??  ?? Lucrative: Some dentists earn from multiple NHS contracts, as well as private patients
Lucrative: Some dentists earn from multiple NHS contracts, as well as private patients
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom