Consultants are being pressurised by some cash starved trusts to forgo their bids for clinical excellence awards, claims the BMA.
Some bosses have tried to blackmail consultants by warning that nurses may have to be made redundant unless they can save money.
So far consultants have refused to play ball and the few trusts involved have backed down. In another development, NHS Employers has indicated that the current freeze on the level of awards will continue until 2013.
Mr Paul Flynn, deputy chairman of the consultants committee, is warning that if one trust succeeds with this ploy of pressurising consultants then others may follow suit. “This sort of emotional blackmail is a form of bullying. If trusts managed to pull off a stunt like this it would have an appreciable impact on the morale of consultants. They have certainly been trying it on in a few trusts,” he said.
He added that trusts should be using consultants to lead the way in helping them to make sustainable economies. “Consultants have SPAs (supporting professional activities) in their job plans just for this purpose.”
If CEAs were blocked consultant salaries would fall behind on the pay scale and they would end up with lower pensions and would be much worse off in retirement, he said. “There has been a fundamental misunderstanding among some people of what CEAs are - they are part of a consultant’s pay and are awarded for achieving a standard of excellence. They are not like bankers’ bonuses.”
A spokesman for NHS Employers said they had not heard of any cases of trusts trying to dissuade consultants from putting in CEA applications.
Earlier this year a leaked memo from the Foundation Trust Network outlined a proposal for scrapping CEAs in England as part of range of cost cutting measures. But a spokeswoman said this was not their current policy. “Foundation trusts are committed to promoting quality and excellence and would certainly want to retain clinical excellence awards as part of promoting a successful and thriving biomedical sector in the UK,” she said.
The level of CEAs has currently been frozen in England as part of the two year public sector pay freeze imposed by the government.
Bill McMillan, head of medical pay and workforce at NHS Employers, said: “The value of existing clinical excellence awards will remain unchanged during the pay freeze period. We understand that freeze will continue for 2011/12 and 2012/13. The government will now be considering the matter of new clinical excellence awards, in the light of its wider approach to public sector pay.”
Trusts in Northern Ireland were recently called on to increase the number of CEAs handed out. It was revealed at the BMA’s annual representatives meeting that while CEAs are awarded at a rate of 0.3 per eligible consultant in England, in NI they’re given out at a rate of 0.1 per consultant.
Pressure to scrap the system in Scotland continues.
Tags: CEAs
Stop moaning about Trusts pressurising doctors & get rid of the damned hypocrisy completely. Almost no-one gets a CEA for ‘clinical excellence’. Its an award for those who kow-tow to the management, those who know how to fill in forms and those who are never at their clinical post because they’re away on committees. Real clinical excellence, practised silently by so many clinicians is almost never rewarded in the NHS because we dont even bother to measure it, indeed daren’t. Who knows which of one’s colleagues has the lowest wound infection rates, the best operative outcomes, cures the most cancers? Imagine the fear, the absolute terror that would be generated amongst holders or candidates for CEAs if we started quantifying REAL excellence. Any of you chickenhearts want to give it a go?
Could not agree with Pete’s comments more. CEA’s in general have very little to do with clinical excellence. Should be called the “Street Smart Awards” or the “form filling excellence awards”(FFEA).
Have played the game and successfully too. Have to admit it has nothing to do with clinical excellence though. Some of the crooks who have Siver, gold and all other elements on the periodic table-makes you want to spit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Having been primed by the ‘media’ about poor performance in the NHS, listening to anecdotal evidence of friends and having a close friend die following major but routine surgery; I resorted to the ‘web’ in an effort to find out how to assess surgeons. In the absence of anything else I can only assume the CEA gives the only measure on which I can base an assessment. I appreciate the possibility that a non-CEA holder could be the best but how else am I to proceed? Who or what can I trust? Having just heard that pre-op check lists are being ignored by some, adding to my terrors, can I be blamed for a crisis of confidence in the health care services? It seems to me, a layperson, that I must rely on the CEA.