Post by Focus on Jul 2, 2013 5:30:01 GMT
Consultants are being paid up to £200 an hour to work evenings and weekends under a ‘nonsense’ pay deal, according to MPs.
They have attacked a lucrative contract for senior hospital doctors that saw their average pay rise by 28 per cent while allowing them to refuse to work outside office hours.
The MPs on the Public Accounts Committee also attacked a controversial bonus scheme that gives doctors up to £76,000 a year on top of their salaries.
Doctors can also apply for bonuses known as clinical excellence awards which range from £3,000 to £76,000 a year (STOCK IMAGE)
The pay deal was introduced under Labour in 2003 in the hope of discouraging consultants from quitting the NHS.
Average pay for the most senior doctors rose from £68,505 to £88,010. For those lower down it went up from £52,640 to £65,035.
Doctors can also apply for bonuses known as clinical excellence awards which range from £3,000 to £76,000 a year.
They are meant to reward extra research, teaching or efforts to improve hospital care and are paid for the rest of a doctor’s career whether or not they carry on the additional work.
In a report today the committee says the NHS is spending £5.6billion a year on consultants’ pay – 5 per cent of its overall budget.
Committee chairman Margaret Hodge warned that the contract was not providing taxpayers with value for money and had not made doctors any more productive. ‘The contract allows consultants to refuse to work during evenings and weekends,’ she said.
Committee chairman Margaret Hodge warned that the contract was not providing taxpayers with value for money and had not made doctors any more productive
‘As a result, hospitals struggle to provide the appropriate level of consultant-led care for patients. Some trusts even pay up to £200 an hour for additional work which is done at weekends.’
She said that half of hospitals do not monitor properly how well consultants are performing, and many are being given pay rises every few years just for turning up.
She also pointed out that some 60 per cent of consultants are receiving the clinical excellence award bonuses, even though by definition they should be handed out only for rare, outstanding work.
‘This nonsense highlights how badly consultants’ performance is being managed,’ she said. ‘A proper culture of performance management for consultants and other NHS staff must be implemented if we are to avoid incidents of poor performance.’
In March, the committee heard evidence from senior health service officials about the contract. MPs accused them of ‘stuffing their (consultants) mouths with gold’.
The report points out that the contract is at odds with current NHS plans to encourage more senior doctors to work evenings and weekends.
Figures show patients admitted to hospital on a Saturday or Sunday are 10 per cent more likely to die compared to those admitted during the week partly due to a lack of senior staff.
Dr Paul Flynn, of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee, said the report was ‘unhelpful’ and overly critical of ‘hard-working doctors’.
He added: ‘The barbed rhetoric from the Public Accounts Committee describing the system for awarding excellence as ‘‘nonsense’’ is particularly unhelpful at a time when we are trying to come up with some broad principles for potential negotiations.
‘Doctors are crucial to innovation in the NHS, and their work not only improves quality, but also frequently saves taxpayers money.’
MADNESS!! - Fx
