Guidance

71 responses to “Hospital doctors’ pay scales for 2011/2012”

1. OrthoSpR says:

   September 2, 2011 at 10:32 am

   The problem I fundamentally have is the duplicity and double standards in the way the medical profession has been recently reformed…

   On the one hand, professional autonomy, self governance of our working hours and consequently some pay has been taken away from us…

   …on the other hand people complain when we then insist on being payed for the roles and hours that have been imposed on us…

   Surgical training is a prime example - the reduction in hours means that less junior doctors are on the wards, consequently, more senior doctors that should be training in theatre and clinics are covering their duties and not getting trained. The ‘old-school’ consultants who set the training agenda insist on the old standards still being met in the same timeframe - consequently this year I have worked 22 days of annual leave to gain operating experience plus around 500+hours of day-to-day work which I will never be payed or renumerated for.

   The problem is we’re bent over a barrel - If we worked to rule, people would soon realise the value we get from junior doctors, however no-one would be willing to do this because patients would suffer and at the end of the year you’d be ejected from your training programmes…
2. Indian Dog says:

   September 8, 2011 at 9:40 pm

   @ Ortho SpR, my sympathies with you. Been in orthopaedics since 1991 and almost an old indian dog! Back in 2004 had a visit from a high ranking official from the RCSE. His vision then was that training would produce candidates suitable to work as part of a team of consultants rather than an independent consultant who could provide all round care. Guess his vision is now coming true. The NHS is going to the dogs were cost cutting at grass root level provides finances to pay for new posts like Deputy Chief Executives and a general proliferation of dandelions called managers!
3. g says:

   September 17, 2011 at 6:41 pm

   Completely agree with you. Instead of paper monitoring of hours worked, we should have a swipe system which will calculate the hours we worked. This would mean we do not have to beg consultants to sign on the paper, is a more robust system and if we are not remunerated then we should be allowed time in liu. We all know we work atleast one hour extra daily on a minimum, many times without any break for food.This is expected from us and we do it coz our patient concerns
4. Old dog says:

   September 28, 2011 at 12:57 pm

   Not sure I agree with this. I am 52 and been a consultant 17 years. Worked 1 in 2 for 5 years in training with an average of 104 hours per week. Now faced with covering the exhausted trainees who do less than half of what we did. In paediatrics we are staring resident consultant working right down the barrel. I guess it will vary from specialty to specialty but life for trainees is much better now than it was. Only dilemma is we may all be resident until we’re 60
5. The_Thinker says:

   November 7, 2011 at 12:47 am

   When you are discussing hospital consultant salaries in the UK (junior docs - remember this is what you will get in the future), it may be worth comparing the current situation with what is happening elsewhere, such as in Ireland.

   If you look at http://saraburke.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/consultants-dissatisfied-with-cut-backs/, you will find out what consultants are paid in Ireland.

   To quote from the above: “…. consultants working public only starting salary is €166,000 but can earn up to €208,000 if they become a professor with a public only consultant. Those on Type B contracts, which allows public and private work, start at €156,000 but can earn more, if they take on additional roles.”

   What about CEAs you might say? Well, even if you are one of the tiny number of UK consultants who manage to claw there way up to being awarded a platinum CE award (and, remember, only a handful of these are available annually - and anyway CEAs may even be withdrawn this year in the same way as they have already been in Scotland), you can get up to £175,000, but only for the last few years of your career. Remember also that this is the sort of salary that all Irish consultants are receiving from the outset of their taking up a consultant post and, unlike in the UK, not just a few who have managed to get to the top of a very greasy pole.

   Don’t kid yourself that we are well paid in the UK compared to equivalent countries. Take a look at what doctors are paid in Australia and the USA as well.

   If you add to that that the NHS enjoys pretty well a 100% monopoly of our labour, as the UK’s private sector is so tiny (at least outside of London) that you really have nowhere else that you can work, when it comes to negotiating our own pay and conditions we British doctors have managed to put ourselves into a pretty dreadful situation with no aces to play. Where did all those brains that acquired all those A grades at A level to get into medical school disappear to???? Don’t blame governments completely - we are a useless shower when it comes to presenting a collective face and standing up for ourselves.

   There are some compensations however. At least you can take some comfort out of the fact that your pay freeze is helping those nice bankers and captains of industry to earn their justly-deserved millions!!!! In addition, isn’t it fun to live up to all those lavish promises that Labour made on your behalf about how hard you would work.
6. Paul says:

   November 24, 2011 at 3:08 pm

   The pay for consultants in Ireland as been cut by between 15 and 25% since that report.
   There are no merit awards and income tax is effectively 55%.

   A new consultant on a public only salary starts at 155k, take home per month would be about £4000.
   Look at publicjobs.ie for the pay scales.
7. JS says:

   December 18, 2011 at 11:33 pm

   Stop with all the moaning! Some poor sods have lost their jobs and families are really suffering (come on The_Thinker don’t confuse “there” and “their” - did you really get straight ‘A’s?). My mate who is a graduate engineer- works all the hours God sends- very much neglecting his family and he doesn’t take home more than £2k a month! He got straight A’s at A-level and a first class degree to boot from a very reputable university. When he hears a mention of a final salary pension he could cry!
   I’m sick of all the moaning. If you don’t like it stop being a martyr and leave. More cash, better lifestyle, glory, fame and the beatiful ladies all await you bigshot geniuses languishing in the NHS overseas!
8. Nas says:

   January 5, 2012 at 11:22 pm

   Two wrongs don’t make a right JS. Without the “moaning” there’ll be no change and moving overseas is a bad move since the NHS spends thousands training doctors/medical students.
9. Elkourban says:

   January 7, 2012 at 10:23 pm

   I don’t understand why it takes us long years to train and possibly not enjoy a balanced life for most of our working career, where do we go from here?
10. Bambam says:

    January 24, 2012 at 11:30 pm

    Your GP colleagues are on a deal that costs the NHS more than it should.They now do far less hours than say 12 years ago and are on much more money. They no longer have to do out of hours or weekends and as most are “self employed” also get major tax breaks.
11. exploited says:

    January 31, 2012 at 11:18 am

    All the forums seem to discuss consultants’ pay- do you ever think about the speciality doctors who got the worst deal when contracts were negotiated; then neither consultants nor trainees came out fighting against the injustices the SAS were being subjected. Of course it did not matter then as most SAS were IMGs of a different hue.What was meted to the SAS is now being done (in a way) to us all- so to all those who stayed on the sidelines when SAS doctors were crying for your cooperation enjoy now the humiliation of being told your labour is overvalued.
12. Alfahad says:

    February 14, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    It’s sad to read all these comments. It does show how frustrated doctors can get. I sympathise with all doctors. It’s hard enough to carry out all that training and learning in and outside your hospital, care and be responsible for the life of your patients. It’s even worse feeling unrewarded, not appreciated by those you care for the most.
    In the UK we trust our NHS doctors. You can’t say the same about bankers or if you lived abroad in some countries where quality of care is depends on how much you are willing to pay.
    Those who think doctors are well paid in the UK need to remember that without them our NHS would not exist and survive the future. It takes over 10 years to turn a bright enthusiastic medical student to become a consultant. It does not take a lot to make that same person lose his enthusiasm, faith and change his career choice or move abroad.
    Doctors have skills that are transferable. Unless we recognise that we will lose them to other countries.
    Our consultants, in order to cope with the decline in their income, will either chose to work abroad for a significantly higher income or start doing more private work at the expense of their juniors training. This could lead to decline in training provision and doctors’ standards in the long run.

    Decisions that have been made by politician will save us money in the short term. Its effect our children will feel in years to come. As current consultants retire; hospitals will struggle to replace them with same quality. Less salary means less competition. The one thing the public would notice is a trend to travel abroad to get a better quality care, or double standards between NHS and private care.

    I am sorry if I sounded pessimistic. My wish is to share my concerns and work to prevent the decline from happening.
13. Concerned Layman Lawyer says:

    February 27, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    What is clear is that all the money appears to have gone to the GPs who now work effectively part time hours NEVER working evening or weekends and farming out the challenging cases to the hospitalts. AND now, to add insult to injury you’re allowing the GPs to hold the purse strings. When the public get to see how well the GPs have done both in terms of earnings AND pensions they might turn on them a little like the bankers given that they have massively increased their remuneration at the same time as massively reducing their workload. Absolutely mad.
14. Consultantsurgeon says:

    March 1, 2012 at 9:02 am

    A dose of reality is required here folks. I have personally done extremely well out of being a hospital doctor. I have a fantastic job, which is varied, interesting and will change over my career to whatever I want - be it more subspecialistation, teaching, research, management, runnning courses, training,examinations etc etc. The possibilities are endless and frankly exciting. I work with great staff and get paid over £100000 for the privilege. Sure the NHS is uninspiring in its management, but its always been like that - why people are trying to derive inspiration from the NHS is beyond me. It is what it is and so just accept it and get on with it, preferably with a smile on your face and a shrug of your shoulders - this works! I’ve always believed in looking after yourself and your patients as best you can, but do not try to change the NHS, its pretty hopeless and it always will be as long as politics are involved.

    My wife’s a GP and its dreadful. She’s always looking for something else to do, and believe me GP practice management is truly awful. I earn more than the GPs I know, and yes they are jealous (not of the money really, but in what I’ve achieved and the job I am doing)

    PS to “the_ thinker “I do private practice outside of London and I my earnings are excellent. Please get your facts right before painting such a bleak picture of things as a Consultant. It is still an excellent job. I would urge SpRs reading this not to lose heart.
15. tax payer says:

    March 17, 2012 at 11:41 pm

    I find it obscene that you are think you are underpaid.

    I am engineer, I work in highly regulated safety critical industry. Google “bohpal” if you think engineers don’t have lives their hands as as much as doctors. I have 10 years industry experience a degree from Imperial college and 4 As at “A” level. I mange around 6 contact staff, mentor 3 staff engineers and have budgetary responsibility. I suggest that I have roughly equivalent job to a threshold one or 2 consultant but i get paid £47K which is quite good for an engineer. The boys who do the sums and make sure Lewis Hamilton’s car stays on the ground get a little less than this. I repeat, I find it obscene that you are think you are underpaid.

    PS my boss manages 10 staff engineers (2 like me, 6 more junior and 2 world experts) and a 2-3 million budget he gets around £68k. The world wide experts, i.e. no-one anywhere knows more than them get around 50k and 59 k. Consultants seem to get this on top of their salary for national expertise.
16. GP registrar says:

    March 21, 2012 at 12:43 am

    enough slagging of GPs. I used to think GP are overpaid and do very little until I was placed in a GP job. All those people not been in a GP job, please don’t talk as if you “know it all”. My typical day starts at 8.30am walking into surgery with 10mins apt booked for patients until about 12pm, at times with extras slotted in between patients and calls to take in between causing my surgery apt to run late. that’s at least 6 patient seen within one hour at least. although last patient listed about 12pm, usually finishes morning surgery around 12.40pm or 1pm, then rushing out from surgery to search for patient’s home for home visit typically 2-3homes and rushing back to surgery having patient waiting from 2pm appointment until about 5.40pm. again 10mins apt slots. typically finish about 7pm most evenings.

    GP job is worse than being in a hospital post. Time is full packed. In between, I am expected to fill medical insurance forms, read hospital discharge letters, do referal letters, sign millions of prescription scripts, “attempting” to do audit to fulfill my educational needs,etc. luckily as GP trainee we get half day each week, and that is a life saver, I don’t know how else I could have survived.

    I recall when in hospital post, I had time for lunch, chit chat with other colleagues. when no admission to clerk in, able to rest and sit in doctor’s lounge and watch tv. when on call at night, able to sleep through the night. dream compared to a GP job.

    Now I am at the end of my training as GP, I understand how other’s (non-GPs) view GP’s being overpaid as they thought GP sits around in front of computer and do nothing apart from “referring and passing on patient to secondary care”. (naive)
    The amount of patient seen by GP is non-comparable and workload and paper work, including admin stuff if “everest” comparable to other hospital job. GP is hard work.

    Now average pay for a salaried GP if £59-79K for a 9 session job which is 5 days’ a week. GP’s MDU fee is about £5000/year. This is pretax profit. thus take home monthly pay wound be about £3500/month. All the big huuhhaahh about GP being paid £350 000 was some monkey in the media picking few of the top GP “PARTNER” in the whole UK who probably manages a few GP practices and worked many many years to reach that figure. and that figure is gross earning before deduction of salary to receptionist, electricity, building maintenance, nurse,etc etc etc It might surprise you but average PARTNER GP in UK earns about £100000 after all that deduction pre-tax, thus after tax earning about £5000/month, not very much is it considering how much effort and training that one has to go through…

    Despite all this, if one wants to work under NHS, doctor’s salary in this country is non-comparable to other countries as NHS is public owned, thus we are likened to a civil servant.

    I once heard on radio about BBC staff’s pay(top ladder). I was in awe when BBC (which is also government owned-we pay tv licences) felt that they need to pay their staff members well as comparable to private sector,otherwise they would loose them ?? funny how things works. 85% owned government bank(bank of scotland) also have similar debates comparing the staff’s pay to private sectors.. Too bad there is not much opportunity for doctors to do that at present

    salary of a childminder is even more extortionate. I have to pay £1000/month to my child minder due to my long hours as a GP registrar (7.30am-7.30pm Mon-Fri) This childminder takes care of 4 other childrens. She earns much much more than myself big time. Some times makes me wonder why even bother studying so hard through university and suffering through all the unsociable hours…

    all in all, as long NHS is a free service, we have a job, a salary to bring home, a home to return to, children to raise and not having to worry about forking out expensive medical bills in time of ill health..

    If money is everything, then UK is really not the place to be at present. Tax is too high, yet don’t know where they are spent. council bills which is unheard of in other countries I have been; as usually is funded from central government from tax?? where are these money?? the harder you work in UK, the more you will be taxed; what a funny culture. God knows what it would be like in the next few years.
17. will says:

    March 21, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    @Tax Payer
    I, like you am an engineer. Engineers could do a medical degree, but not necessarily the other way around. My brother has degrees in Mech Eng, Law, and did 3 years of Medicine. Law was simplest. At the risk of simplification, Medicine is largely stuffing a big dictionary in your head, and being able to apply logical thinking.
    There is one aspect however, that is paramount. Only in Medicine is it often a life and death matter where a decision can swing it, and for that, Im glad that Medicine attracts the best minds. Imagine who would become doctors if the salary was £15K ? Would yo seriously want to get medical advice from them ?

    I am happy that my tax goes to such people, and its a shame there are not more, rather than bureaucrats with no medical expertise inside the NHS milking it while they can.
18. academic medic says:

    March 26, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    Friends, please don’t get caught up in debates about GPs vs hospital doctors. It’s classic divide and conquer politics and we must not engage.

    As it goes I think that we’re pretty well paid. The real problem is actually the rising cost of living in the UK, particularly housing. Was anybody around in the 1970s? My father raised a family during these troubled times on a lecturer’s income alone. We had two cars and a small detached house in an affluent commuter town. Doctors lived in even bigger houses in even better areas and sent their children to private schools.

    At the moment the house that I grew up in would cost about 7x the starting salary of a consultant. Disposable income has fallen at the same time - we’re taxed more, particularly via indirect routes such as VAT and council tax, energy prices have increased, childcare is more expensive etc etc

    A key reason for this situation was a centrally-engineered credit explosion that hid the fall in disposable income and allowed people to feel ‘rich’ for a while. The side-effect was inflation in house prices and in the pay of those working in finance. This process reached its logical conclusion and is being slowly but surely wound up. We are now much poorer than we would have been without the credit expansion in the first place. The money must be paid back, but it’s difficult to compete in this global market. Another problem facing us is servicing promises made to the retired/ retiring population. This demographic population bulge decides the outcome of elections for at least a decade and will mostly receive their money.

    So to get back to us, listen to consultant surgeon, he’s right. Enjoy what you have and enjoy your job. It can be grind, but it’s a fabulous career. And if you don’t feel rich despite earning well above the UK median salary, at least you now know why!
19. js says:

    March 26, 2012 at 11:34 pm

    Nas,

    I would object to your reasoning. I have frequently seen the suggestion that it costs many thousands of pounds to train doctors and medical students. I have seen a figure of approximately £250k quoted for training medical students to full registration. This figure is incredulous. When has a medical student ever delayed a theatre list to the point that productivity dropped and fewer operations took place? Never- the students stand meekly at the back of a theatre or if they are exceptionally lucky they get to hold a retractor! If students are on the wards they are cannulating, performing ecg’s or taking bloods. Students can be seen wheeling patients to the x-ray department or to some other such area for investigation. Students sit at the back of outpatient clinics looking at the prettier side of most consultants (the back of their head) and “observe”. If the student is exceptionally lucky the consultant will throw them an inappropriate referral to clerk so the patient feels they have got their two pence worth. This apparently costs £250K? Don’t make me laugh. Students make an exceptional financial contribution to the NHS free of charge and thus I suspect the figure is nothing like £250K. Students are nothing more than a front for the greedy medical schools and SHA’s and Trust’s who coin it in on the back of students. Time to put students in charge of their own finances and allow them to commission their own clinical education. It is time abolish the opaque financial arrangements of SIFT.
20. Bear says:

    April 15, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    I’ve been a doctor since 1985. As is common in this profession, I’ve been through a divorce. Look at a solicitor’s bill per hour to put things in perspective! You can”t fight city hall. Get on with it, quit moaning and just work together to return the NHS, the envy of the world, to the clinicians and dispose of excess administration. Simple.
21. Bob The Builder says:

    April 29, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    The way I see it is that two types of medic exist: altruist and Eton boy. About a 50/50 split.

    Most professionals in the real world dont get close to 80k. Im a teacher so I am doing extrememly well to get 40k after 10 years. (Finally got a weekend off and came to this site by chance.) A headmaster gets about 57k and I might get there by the time I’m 50 if Im lucky (in charge of 50-100 staff).

    Altruists: keep working hard you didnt come into this for pay so I take my hat off to you for the work you do. (remember only 50% of you or less are altruists).

    To Eton boys: Comparison always leads to dissatisfaction (cars, attactiveness of spouse, holidays, member length), so dont want for more - appreciate what you have. Realise that most people will never get halfway to the 80-100k you get even though they have equivalent job difficulty, and are also asked to work for free often. Medicine is not meant to be a gentlemens club. I work hard to correct children at school so they dont grow up with the same overly demanding nature as the comments I am reading here, but I cant reach all the children I teach. Some slip through the system and end up as Eton boy type medics (ie arrogant, with no real grounding in the real world).

    Bottom line, appreciate the salary you get. Even it was halved, its still more than most people will ever get.