Revealed: Boom time in the NHS sees first nurse paid £100,000
By
Chris Brooke
Last updated at 2:20 AM on 01st December 2008
An NHS nurse based in Rotherham earned £100,000 by working overtime
An NHS nurse has broken the £100,000 pay barrier for the first time as the drive to cut waiting lists brings lucrative rewards for senior staff.
The nurse consultant, who is based in Rotherham, earns double the basic salary of around £50,000 by working overtime under a generous Health Service initiative.
The revelation is another indication of how public sector workers have prospered under Labour.
Figures disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act indicate dozens of NHS nurses in the top pay bracket earn more than £60,000 a year.
Although many junior nurses struggle to make ends meet on low pay, figures for September 2008 show nurses had an average income, including overtime, of £31,600.
Six-figure salaries earned by many GPs have been the subject of recent public debate, but the figures also show how hospital doctors pay has rocketed, with many consultants earning more than £200,000 on the NHS.
One consultant at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust was paid between £225,000 and £229,000 in the last financial year.
Consultants' basic salaries can be boosted by bonuses for bringing down waiting lists.
One doctor at Gateshead NHS Foundation Trust was reportedly paid an extra £50,000 in the last financial year to help cut waiting times.
The average consultant salary was £119,200. But it is the figures on nurses' pay that will cause the biggest shock.
NHS initiatives to reduce waiting lists and improve services allows many nurses to earn substantial sums of money by working overtime (file picture)
The profession has for long been regarded as one where staff work excessive hours for little reward.
Labour has promised to meet an 18-week maximum waiting target by the end of December.
The introduction in 1999 of the nurse consultant position has enabled the country's most experienced nurses to join the executive pay bracket.
Nurse consultants can earn a basic salary of up to £64,000 before bonuses or overtime.
The Rotherham trust last year had four nurses of this grade and it has not identified the six-figure earner.
One of the four, Julie D'Silva, is a staff governor who specialises in endoscopies - a form of internal examination.
Asked yesterday if she was the £100,000 nurse, she said: 'I have been asked not to comment.'
The NHS employs more than 800 nurse consultants in England.
Described as being 'central to the process of health service modernisation', they must spend at least 50 per cent of their time working directly with patients.
They are also often involved in research, education, training and development. Nurse consultants normally work around 38 hours a week and should not work more than 48 hours under a European working time directive.
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No. Paying footballers £100,000 a week is a disgrace. Get a sense of perspective.
Tom, Chichester, West Sussex, 30/11/2008 18:25
FOOTBALLERS AREN'T PAID BY THE GOVERNMENT. They deserve what they earn due to what the clubs are making. If the clubs weren't making hundreds of millions, the players wouldn't be earning millions. I suppose if you were a footballer at a top club making loads of money, you wouldn't accept millions in a contract, you'd rather have it capped at 50k a year rather than 50k a week??
Get real. You can't compare the two. NHS is funded by taxes. Football is a personal choice.
I am not sure why this woman is earning that much money. A Junior doctor earns basic £20k After 5 / 6 years of studying! Recently free accommodation has been removed for Junior doctors taking at least £4k off their salary to £16K and in fact they will be lucky to find somewhere for £4K per year.
All this with masses of student debt for all those years of studying. Why are nurses complaining? In my experience most nurses have a Diploma which you don't even need A Levels to do - I think they are classed as D Grades when it comes to pay banding. Having worked as a healthcare assistant, I have seen how nurses push all the work to the hcas who are paid £5 odd per hour, I've done bathroom trips with patients, clean them when they are bed ridden, collect stools, phlegm, clean their sick - in fact a sister on the ward insisted that I, as the auxiliary clean the sick instead of the staff nurse. Staff nurses give meds and pretend to fill in forms. Aux do ALL the work! Doctors do the rest!
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Don't forget this isn't the norm among the rank and file nurses. Most nurses are band 5 or 6 and their pay falls way short of this amount of money.
- Nell, Staffs, UK, 01/12/2008 15:28