Striking consultants on £128k salaries claim pay is ‘down more’ than nurses – despite top doc earning 12 times more
THE vast pay difference between striking consultants and nurses is today laid bare, as senior doctors insist their pay is “down more” than other public sector staff.
British Medical Association bosses made the revelation this week as they defended the walkouts, which have brought the NHS to a standstill.
But The Sun on Sunday can reveal that one top doctor earned 14 times more than the average nurse in 2020.
The BMA says that since 2008-09, the take-home pay of consultants in England has been cut by 35 per cent in real terms, and wants to see a pay increase above inflation.
Dr Vishal Sharma, chairman of the BMA’s consultants committee, said: “Consultants’ pay has been cut more than every other group across the public sector.”
The Department of Health states the average basic pay for consultants is £97,900 - but doctors can also boost their salaries through overtime and awards.
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This takes the average annual salary of a consultant up to £128,000, the Government says.
But according to latest data from NHS Digital, one doctor earned close to £500,000 in 2020, with top-ups.
Meanwhile, the average salary for nurses — who accepted a five per cent pay offer — is £33,000-£35,000, says nurses.co.uk.
But the most experienced nurses can earn in excess of £114,000.
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Last night, one nurse criticised the impact of consultant strikes on the already buckling NHS.
Tilly Shipsey, 28, from Dorset, qualified in February 2020.
After earning £26,000 working for the NHS, she has joined an agency, taking home £45,000 annually.
Tilly said: “When I worked in the NHS, we didn’t receive any of the benefits or perks that consultants do.
“We had a normal pension and only got paid mileage to and from the hospitals.
“I’ve only been able to get my salary up by leaving the NHS — and I felt I had no choice.”
Tilly also attacked the “distasteful” strike action from consultants.
She added: “Obviously, the consultants have trained for years and I agree they deserve good pay.
“But the pay of nurses does not reflect the job we do.
“The strikes resulted in a Christmas Day service. Morale among nurses is very low.
“So discussions of consultants receiving an even larger pay rise, on an already sizable salary, seem distasteful and it risks only making morale worse.
“I love the NHS - I wish I could return there. I want to very best for all the dedicated amazing nurses who work there.
"We need to celebrate those staff."
NHS data, released this month, found one senior doctor in the Midlands, pocketed £489,500 for a year’s work.
Two others, in the Midlands and London, earned £386,000 and £385,500 respectively.
Last week, the Government announced a six per cent pay increase for NHS consultants, saying that would boost their average earnings to £134,000 a year.
But senior doctors pressed ahead with 48 hours of strike action, from 7am on Thursday, disrupting care for tens of thousands of patients.
The same day, the BMA published new analysis suggesting consultants’ pay had fallen behind lawyers’, architects’ and financial advisers’ over the past 14 years, with cash increases for those professions growing at six times the rate of the top medics’.
Consultants spend four to seven years at medical school, followed by two years of foundation training.
They then embark on core and specialty learning that can last more than 10 years.
Hospital consultants are responsible for providing specialist medical care and expertise to patients in their field.
But NHS leaders warned this means strike action brings routine care to a “virtual standstill”.
‘Get back to work’
It emerged last week that consultants had boasted they were “financially better off” because of the strike action — as they can charge the NHS “a fortune” in overtime rates for rescheduled appointments.
Dr Clive Peedell, a consultant oncologist in Middlesbrough, cancelled a radiotherapy clinic on Friday to join the strike, and saw those patients out of hours.
He posted on Twitter: “I will lose a day’s pay . . . but I am going to claim BMA rates for my extra ad hoc clinic work, which will be paid at 3-4x my normal hourly rate.”
Some consultants have benefitted from high overtime pay to cover for striking junior doctors, who walked out for five days this month.
The BMA “rate card” urges senior docs to charge £215 an hour on weekends or evenings and £269 per hour for night shifts.
A nurse on £38,181 per year, or £19.58 per hour, would typically get around £30 an hour.
Consultants also benefit from large bonuses.
Senior doctors can receive annual payments of up to £40,000 on top of their six-figure salaries, via merit awards.
Up to 600 national awards are available annually, with around 145 consultants receiving the maximum bonus.
They can also top up their earnings with private work.
NHS consultants currently do some 800,000 private procedures a year, figures show.
But while they cash in, tens of thousands of NHS nurses are having to fight for bonuses.
Those top-ups — worth up to £1,600 and paltry in comparison to consultants’ perks — formed part of the recent Government pay deal, which awarded a five per cent rise.
But an estimated 25,000 are yet to get it.
Consultants also enjoy access to some of the best pension schemes in the public sector.
In this year’s Budget, they benefited from a significant pension rise, with the scrapping of the lifetime allowance.
Now senior doctors can save more for retirement tax-free than they had under the policy’s previous cap of £1.07million — the threshold at which they are taxed.
The Government estimates that a consultant who retires at 65 could now expect to receive a pension in excess of £60,000 per year.
Consultants pay a higher percentage of their wages as pensions contributions than nurses due to “tiering”.
Currently consultants pay 13.5 per cent of their wages as pensions contributions.
The BMA says that due to the way that the NHS pension scheme works, this does not translate into a larger pension.
A newly qualified nurse in England and Wales, on a salary of around £27,000, pays about £183 on their basic salary into their pension each month.
Nurses only qualify for very modest expenses, such as tax relief on an allowance worth £125 a tax year for washing uniforms.
Those who buy tights and shoes for work can claim back up to £18.
And while nurses stopped strike action in May after a five per cent rise was agreed, the BMA is threatening another consultants’ strike on August 24 and 25.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay last week said: “I am disappointed the BMA is going ahead with this strike.
“My door is always open to discuss non-pay issues, but this pay award is final so I urge the BMA to end their strikes immediately.”
“More than 600,000 appointments, procedures and operations have been missed, axed or postponed in eight months of industrial action.
Last night, Tory Philip Davies, MP for Shipley in Yorkshire, said: “Consultants need a bit of self-awareness.
“They should stop waging a political campaign, get back to work and stop holding the country to ransom.”
A BMA spokesman said: “We strongly believe that, alongside doctors, our nursing colleagues need a proper pay uplift.
“It is misleading to suggest these payments are typical for an average consultant.
“It completely fails to reflect reality for the profession and what consultants are actually being paid.
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“Consultants are not asking for a pay rise, but for fairness — ending the pay cuts they have experienced over the last 15 years and reforming the rigged pay review process that has overseen them.”
One individual NHS consultant earns 12 times more than nurses' average pay - not all consultants, as this item's original headline may have suggested. It has been amended. Further, consultants are not seeking a 35% pay rise as the graphic originally included in the article stated. Rather, they want an above-inflation rise to compensate for what they say is a 35% reduction in their take-home pay between 2008/09 and 2021/22, and reform of the pay review body, which would rule on future pay claims
