NHS England must ‘scrap’ plans to publish the names and earnings of all GPs with an income over £156,000, or risk losing precious workforce, the BMA has warned.
Pulse revealed yesterday that NHS England plans to go ahead with the requirement for the highest-earning GPs to self-declare their income by May, with draft guidance out for consultation with the BMA and medical accountants.
However Dr Kieran Sharrock, acting chair of GPC England at the BMA, told Pulse that ‘GP earnings need to be treated with extreme caution’ due to the current workforce crisis.
He also highlighted that many GPs will be working extra hours, thereby increasing earnings, just to keep up with high levels of patient demand.
‘Unable to hire more doctors, this means GPs are having to spread themselves more thinly, often working longer hours and putting their own welfare at risk as they try to keep up with soaring patient demand,’ he said.
He went on to argue that singling out GPs for earnings publication was unfair and without grounds.
He said: ‘There is simply no reason to single out GPs for this special treatment and it will leave GPs worried about the deliberate vilification of the profession.’
‘The BMA has repeatedly advised NHS England and the Government that this policy will only drive more doctors away from the NHS – at a time when we need staff more than ever – and that it must be scrapped to ensure that patients can continue to get the care they need,’ he added.
The draft guidance, seen by Pulse, states that all GP partners, salaried GPs and locums will be bound by the requirement to declare their income for publication.
Upon announcing the pay transparency contractual change when it was first agreed with the BMA’s GP Committee, NHS England had said it came as part of a drive to ‘increase transparency on NHS earnings’.
NHS England has not returned Pulse’s requests for comment.
Tell you what: GPs on that amount of money can publish their incomes on the same day every Tory MP declares every penny from every backstreet, dodgy, corporate source, fesses up to every sexual assault and agrees to them being mandatorily annually urine drugs tested.
Owzat Reptiles ?
As said above – the narcissists orchestrating you as the headline, whilst they procure and divert NHS budget into long lost innovations and schemes, with their own consultancy back pockets. The corruption and siphoning within healthcare is utterly mind-blowing, if you are willing to face up to it. And point fingers at the workers on the ground floor of the dirty high street building – of-course, that is where the gold and luxury is hidden. This whole charade is beyond comical.
A further part of the pernicious government campaign to try to make the public believe NHS staff requesting a fair wage for a fair days work will deprive the public of services.
It’s the exodus of staff because of poor remuneration/conditions of service that is the threat to the NHS.
My nhs contract will be tightly rolled up and used to explore Steven Barclays splenic flexure before consent to this.
Boris 200k per talk. He got Brexit done and now we have no medicines.
date: january 2023
dear practice managers
thankyou so much for all the work you have given me over the past few years. as a locum i have enjoyed all your company and i am glad to have been of help over the years.
as you know, i am 72 years old, and now mortgage and debt free.
unfortunately, the government has decided to have another go at “gp bashing”, and decided that all gp’s earning over a certain amount will have to publish their earnings. this does not apply to consultants, pr consultants, hospital managers, politicians etc etc – just gp’s.
for this reason i have now got to re-assess what i earn, to avoid the politicians, press, joe public and everyone else banging on my door saying i am a “fat cat/milking the nhs/overpaid, underworked, lazy gp etc etc etc”
this unfortunately means that i cannot commit to working my regular slot for your practice until i know where i am earnings-wise.
i know this will be a disappointment to you and all the patients, but i’m sure you will understand this is completely outside the control of myself, and all the other locums and salaried gp’s. obviously, the supply of suitably qualified doctors will drop, and presumably the wait to see a gp will get longer, but there is nothing we can do about that – could you please explain that to the patients when they start complaining.
i am still around, with an unrestricted license to practice, and as soon as the situation changes we can all get back to work, and the nhs can start playing “catch up” – yet again.
in the meantime i shall be in my car workshop, fixing my classic car collection – so if any of you need any spraying or welding done, please call down. i shall be able to help with this, because anything i earn from this does not count as “medical income”, and i don’t have to tell the nosey parker brigade how much i earn from other sources.
thankyou again
dr d jenkins, gmc# 2317878
I absolutely will not be complying with this -as it would no doubt lead to adverse media scrutiny and could also cause Dr- patient relationship issues.
Our families could also become a target for the criminal fraternity if the think we are “loaded”- which we are not.
I will therefore breech my contact hopefully along with thousands of others – what are NHSE going to do then – suspect nothing ?
If you work hard, employ a lot of people and hold a lot of responsibility, you are a villain. “Only” working part time (because you are also family-rearing), is particularly villainous. You can’t win at the moment!
So this is the usual negotiating tactic, However I have tried to calculate how many hours i work for the NHS / year at a conservative hourly rate subtract my take home pay and I reach an estimate that had I not effectively been working ” pro-bono” as the legal profession like to call it , My take home pay should be £300,000 more. I am considering declaring this new figure to reflect the goodwill that the NHS receives from me, although i do like Copperfield’s idea of £3,000,000,000. If we are to declare our income let it not be reflective of all the Goodwill that the NHS receives and on which it relies
If they do this, they should also publish the what the lowest earning GPs are taking home.