Top GPs earning over £300,000 - The Times

Doctor_Gloom

DaddyBear wrote: »

Because its a highly skilled job with huge responsibility requiring a long and difficult period of training.
We get a salary and nil else.

To be fair a chimp could do our job. All we do, day in day out, is deal with the same moaning minnies and dot cottons in the surgery with the same recurring complaints. It'd save a fortune if we formulated a computer program, get the patient to type in their symptoms and dish out the prescriptions.

wigglebeena

I still don't grudge a GP making good money. What a job, I wouldn't fancy it. Dealing with the moaning aggressive hypochondriac drug-seeking etc etc general public and their grim bodily parts. That's after intensive stressful training and coming to terms with not making the grade as a hospital doctor.

My GP's surgery is in a really rough area and has to fend off violent chavs and drug-seeking addicts on a regular basis. Would you like it?

MPs should have to clean their GP's boots.

abaxas

Graham_Devon wrote: »

LOL.

How little?

And people don't understand this? Do you know what GP's do? I mean really know?

It's FAR more than just seeing patients.

Having worked within the NHS for PCTs and within the QOF. I feel happy to comment.

lostinrates

My current GP is worth £300k but probably gets a lot, a lot less, in a rural practice.

I was shabbily, shabbily treated by NHS years ago, and with trepidation joined the current practice, but my GP has been remarkable; going beyond the call of duty not just for me, but to my knowledge, for other people with longterm ill health. (she herself was ill last year and called regularly to check her ''sick list'' of longtermers under others care.

The problem here is that she is so remarkable. I don't see one can oblige people to go beyond the call of duty, in the very nature of contracts and duty!

lemonjelly

lostinrates wrote: »

My current GP is worth £300k but probably gets a lot, a lot less, in a rural practice.

I was shabbily, shabbily treated by NHS years ago, and with trepidation joined the current practice, but my GP has been remarkable; going beyond the call of duty not just for me, but to my knowledge, for other people with longterm ill health. (she herself was ill last year and called regularly to check her ''sick list'' of longtermers under others care.

The problem here is that she is so remarkable. I don't see one can oblige people to go beyond the call of duty, in the very nature of contracts and duty!

I worked with a palliative care nurse, who in snow a couple of years ago got her car stuck on a hill.

In full awareness of the needs of her patients (terminally ill) & their requirements of medication, she pulled her car over, & proceeded to WALK the rest of her round taking 10 HOURS in driving snow. EVERY PATIENT GOT THEIR MEDICATION. She rang each one to update them regarding her progress. She reported to work the next day.

She deserves £300,000 ayear imo. Actually, she deserves a forking medal!

I really loved relaying that story over the next few days to people who moaned about the fact that it took them 2 hours to get home in the snow cos the roads were bad. It really shut people up & made them think about what really is important.

Pennywise

I don't mind the "top" GPs getting over £100k, but what is the criteria for being "top"? Is is being business minded and an entreprenneur or is it being good with patients? I suspect the former, in which case, such logic has no place in a publicly funded NHS.

What I do object to is the apparently "base" level of wages somewhere between £76k and £100k for the useless and barely average GPs. I fully agree that someone at the peak of any profession can get well over £100k, but the below average ones in other professions would be lucky to get £25k-£50k p.a. let alone over twice that level. I think it is appalling that the genuinely good and caring GPs get the same wage as those who couldn't give a toss.

Idonex

Can someone explain what's highly skilled about GPs? I can understand how a heart/brain/spinal surgeon is ridiculously highly skilled, but a GP? Mine can barely speak English. My grandad's GP diagnosed his stomach 'upset' as IBS 3 times. 6 months later he died of bowl cancer. Only reason we found out and he made it to hospital at all was because we paid for private consultations somewhere else beforehand.

Our current GP so far this year has lost our maternity referral forms meaning we didn't get a scheduled ante natal appointment at the hospital, has 'forgotten' to give us MC&S results which meant my gf didn't get antibiotics she needed. Even after ringing and asking for them to be told they hadn't come in. Only reason we found was because the hospital contacted us. And there's no recourse for any of these constant cockups.

So someone explain how a glorified gateway to secondary care is worth anywhere near 100k a year.

abaxas

Idonex wrote: »

So someone explain how a glorified gateway to secondary care is worth anywhere near 100k a year.

It's easy to explain. If you look at most PCT's management structure.

At the bottom we have Doctors and Nurses, at the top level we have Doctors.

The doctors are managing themselves.

lostinrates

Idonex wrote: »

Mine can barely speak English. .

while this is very poor for a doctor in UK, its still as skilled a job in another language. MAybe the question should be why we can't fill skilled professions sufficiently from English speakers?? A friend of mine is planning emmigration having qualified as a GP...quality of life v income is, for him better elsewhere. At a cost to the UK taxpayer for his university education.

Castleman

If people have such issues about doctors pay, not being good enough, not speaking english then just become a doctor yourself if it's that easy.

Wait for all the excuses...which can be summed up as "I'm too lazy" or "I'm too busy spouting crap from the sidelines".