06.02.13
More progress needed on consultant management
There is room for improvement in how the NHS manages its consultants, a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) suggests.
Pay for senior consultants rose by a maximum of 28% in 2004, to boost productivity. By 2011-12 around 40,000 hospital consultants were employed at a cost to the NHS of £5.6bn.
However, consultants’ private practice work has not increased and pay progression has slowed. The NAO suggests that more could be done to achieve better value for money. Additionally, more trusts still use locally agreed rates of pay for additional work instead of contractual rates.
Between 2002-03 and 2003-04, when the consultant contract changed, total earnings per full-time consultant increased by 12% in real terms with a 24% increase in the bottom of the consultants' pay band and a 28% increase in the top.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “NHS consultants play a key role in the NHS. Given the size of the pay increase given to consultants under the 2003 contract, it is reasonable to expect Trusts to have made more progress in improving how consultants are managed and realizing the expected benefits of the contract.
“Trusts need to get consultants strongly involved in achieving the trusts' objectives as well as their own clinical goals.”
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