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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:

David Cameron's A&E crisis is deterring newly qualified doctors from going into emergency medicine.Top A&E doctors warned the Prime Minister of a looming recruitment crisis but he ignored their pleas. He's left the NHS with a dangerous shortage of A&E doctors and a bill for locums which is now spiralling out of control.

This is an A&E crisis of the Government's own making. They are paying more for an A&E service which is getting worse by the week. And things have got so bad that many doctors are deciding to quit.

Ministers must urgently take action to bring down the bill for locum doctors.

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