Agency doctor earned £459,000 covering missing NHS staff

Radiologists were made as much as £150 an hour with doctors receiving up to £140 an hour to work in Accident and Emergency

Ian Johnston
Monday 08 June 2015 09:59 BST
Comments
(Getty)

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

An agency doctor was paid nearly half a million pounds by the NHS last year, according to a report.

New figures from an audit of temporary health service staff revealed that a general medicine locum was the highest paid doctor, earning £459,000 after working an average of 80 hours a week, The Daily Telegraph reported.

A locum paediatrician earned £320,000 for an average of 65 hours a week, while other agency doctors made £250,000 a year after working 40-hour weeks.

Radiologists were made as much as £150 an hour with doctors receiving up to £140 an hour to work in Accident and Emergency.

Dr Cliff Mann, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the NHS had to pay high agency rates because of a lack of A&E doctors in the NHS.

“We have got desperate shortages of A&E doctors, with more and more turning away because they feel overworked, and burned out,” he said.

“That pushes the prices up and up, so we are stuck in a locums’ market, with hospitals forced into a bidding war.”

The annual figures were calculated based on payments by 40 NHS trusts in the first nine months of 2014/15.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in