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Doctors 'handed up to £3,000 a shift' to plug rota gaps
Hard pressed Accident and Emergency departments are paying locum doctors over £1,000 a shift, while consultants are being handed more than £3,000 and nurses as much as £1,600, according the Telegraph.
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Labour: 'Crisis deterring doctors from going into A&E'
Commenting on doctors being paid as much as £3,000 a shift, Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour's Shadow Health Minister, said:
A&E agency workers 'paid £250 million' in 2013
The highest £3,717 payout for a 30-hour shift to cover a gap in an A&E rota was handed to a doctor at Wye Valley NHS Trust last September, in Herefordshire, according the Telegraph.
The newspaper said the trust did not outline how much of the 30-hour shift was spent working at the hospital, nor how much was on call.
According to the report, one locum doctor who worked one 24-hour shift at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals Foundation Trust was handed £3,027.
But the the figures included fees paid to agencies, which can take up to 15 per cent.
The total bill for these agency workers in 2013 was almost £250 million, according to the figures, meaning a rise of one third in two years.
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Doctors 'handed up to £3,000 a shift' to plug rota gaps
Hard pressed Accident and Emergency departments are paying locum doctors over £1,000 a shift, while consultants are being handed more than £3,000 and nurses as much as £1,600, according the Telegraph.
The newspaper said its investigation found that NHS hospitals are paying doctors as much as £3,000 a shift to fill “endemic” A&E staff shortages
According to official figures, locum doctors were paid over £1,000 to plug holes in A&E department rotas on at least 2,300 occasions last year.