NHS to offer £8k to GPs…for school fees

GPs will be offered £8,000 to send their children to boarding school under controversial NHS plans to avert a recruitment crisis.

Taxpayer money will fund one-off ‘relocation allowances’ if GPs agree to take up posts in remote areas which are severely short-staffed.

Doctors only need to move 50 miles further away to be eligible, and can work part-time – a minimum of twoand-a-half days a week.

The allowances are part of a pilot scheme to encourage doctors to relocate to understaffed surgeries. GPs will be offered up to £10,000, of which £2,000 will cover education and training if they are returning to work after time off or maternity leave.

The remaining £8,000 can be put towards ‘relocation expenses’ including estate agency fees, removal men, renting a flat or paying for part of the cost of sending their children to boarding school if they don’t want to disrupt their education.

Yesterday Dr Maureen Baker, chairman of the Royal College of GPs – which helped draw up the scheme – claimed the incentives ‘make a lot of sense’. However critics questioned why the NHS was ‘throwing money’ at GPs – whose average salaries are around £100,000 – at a time when the Health Service is rationing cancer drugs and routine operations.

Last night a spokesman from the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘This will certainly raise eyebrows. Taxpayers will be right to question if the authorities have got their priorities right.’

They added: ‘Hard-pressed families expect their taxes to pay for nurses and cancer drugs, not to be wasted on fees for expensive boarding schools which many cannot afford for their own children.’