How much do NHS doctors in general earn?

clemmatis

NeverEnough wrote: »

Its amazing just how spiteful and envious people are about doctors perceived wealth, but not much is said about ridiculous payments to sportsmen / footballers. Junor doctors actually get quite low rates of pay and struggle to pay for accommodation, professional college fees, medical defence society fees etc etc.

Yes, doctors often mention footballers. May I say, I think the top ones' pay is injustifiably and obscenely high. as is "top pay" in general, however, here are some figures and an important note


"Premiership footballers earn an average of £676,000 per year,
...
Wages are staggered according to age, with the highest earners tending to be those aged between 27 and 30.
....
Salaries drop considerably in lower divisions, although they are still substantial.

Championship players earn an average salary of £195,750, League One players £67,850 and League Two £49,600.

... "

And by the way

The median expected income for a surgeon in the good old USA, where medical pay is of course generally regarded as very high...., is $250,086*. but of course most have to attract patients/are paid by number of patients (and so on)

Here however are some Mayo Clinic salaries i.e. fixed salaries, top hospital, no need to attract patients

Cardiologist $370,500
Pediatric Endocrinologist $160,250
Consultant Physician $223,000
staff physicians $225,000 to $280,000

*I have two separate sources for the figure, one, authoritative.

Here's an interesting piece (its data though's from 2004)

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/

NeverEnough

clemmatis wrote: »

Yes, doctors often mention footballers. May I say, I think the top ones' pay is injustifiably and obscenely high. as is "top pay" in general, however, here are some figures and an important note


"Premiership footballers earn an average of £676,000 per year,
...
Wages are staggered according to age, with the highest earners tending to be those aged between 27 and 30.
....
Salaries drop considerably in lower divisions, although they are still substantial.

Championship players earn an average salary of £195,750, League One players £67,850 and League Two £49,600.

... "

And by the way

The median expected income for a surgeon in the good old USA, where medical pay is of course generally regarded as very high...., is $250,086*. but of course most have to attract patients/are paid by number of patients (and so on)

Here however are some Mayo Clinic salaries i.e. fixed salaries, top hospital, no need to attract patients

Cardiologist $370,500
Pediatric Endocrinologist $160,250
Consultant Physician $223,000
staff physicians $225,000 to $280,000

*I have two separate sources for the figure, one, authoritative.

Here's an interesting piece (its data though's from 2004)

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/

How does this information relate to the income of UK based doctors on NHS salaries ? It just doesn't. We don't have the same level of doctors salaries here as the US, the health systems between the two countries differ vastly and there is simply no direct comparison, so US doctors salaries might look fantastic, but do not have any direct comparison with the average Drs salary in the UK.

Much of a US doctor's income goes on Malpractice insurance due to the propensity to sue for anything and everything there, and the existence of ambulance chasing lawyers..........no doubt it may become a growing problem here too, claims have risen considerably over the past few years according to Medical Defence Union annual statements and reports. MDU subscriptions are around £3000 pa for a doctor earning £120K in the private sector. NHS doctors pay
less for non Crown indemnified income ie their private practices according to the risk as the defence societies assess it. ( some specialities are high risk).

Anton123

I have been critical of footballers' pay at times, but it all comes down to the market. Football is still currently an exciting product that people are willing to watch and will pay for it despite price increases at the gates, Sky subscriptions, etc. When you have millions of eye-balls, companies are going to pay many millions to gain exposure. TV companies will pay billions for a TV contract because they know they will gain more subscribers to their channels and, more importantly, companies buying advertising space during commercials. I think Sky recently extended their contract for a further 4 years for something like £3bn.

I do however think football has reached a peak and can only go down from now on. I expect far lower TV rights offered in 4 years time when its up for renewal. Any sign of fewer people attending matches and TV audiences going down, it can mean disaster. I am actually little surprised Sky paid as much £3bn because TV figures for premier league and champions league football has actually gone down somewhat over the last2/3 years. That's partly due to more channels in the digital revolution, but I seriously do think football has reached a peak.

Going back to why footballers earn astronomical sums; well, if footballers get paid less, the money will line the pockets of the owners of the clubs anyway. But if the owners of clubs do not have access to star names, their product will not attract fans hence they are willing to pay in excess of £100k a week for big names.

I also think the same will happen to entertainers (film and music industry). In the future we may bypass cinema complexes alltogether with filmakers releasing films directly on to products like iTunes and other downloadable devices. But they will have to charge significantly less than for a movie ticket. This will result in smaller grossing films and studios making less. The studios will have to pay less to their actors. The same trend is already occurring in the music industry.

WolfSong2000

Well, a few years ago whilst seeing a male GP for an appointment in Aberdeen, he was complaining to me that he only earned around the £70k mark, whilst GP's in London got to drive flash cars and were earning over £100k. Can't even remember why he started going on about this, as I'd never met the GP before (and never saw him again).

Anton123

WolfSong2000 wrote: »

Well, a few years ago whilst seeing a male GP for an appointment in Aberdeen, he was complaining to me that he only earned around the £70k mark, whilst GP's in London got to drive flash cars and were earning over £100k. Can't even remember why he started going on about this, as I'd never met the GP before (and never saw him again).

The cost of living is significantly more in London so a higher salary is supposed to compensate for that. Not knowing Aberdeenshire, I am guessing you could probably have a better standard of living there on 70K than you would in London on £100k. Either way, both sums are enough to have a good standard of living.

CKhalvashi

pickpocketlocket wrote: »

Worth pointing out that these awards can in some cases double the salary of a consultant!

Yes. My mother earned just short of £200,000 last year (12 sessions/week, new contract, 21 years as consultant in the UK), and the last £60k of that was award based. She's also got significant managerial responsibilities, however.

CK

clemmatis

NeverEnough wrote: »

How does this information relate to the income of UK based doctors on NHS salaries ? It just doesn't. We don't have the same level of doctors salaries here as the US, the health systems between the two countries differ vastly and there is simply no direct comparison, so US doctors salaries might look fantastic, but do not have any direct comparison with the average Drs salary in the UK.

1. I posted them because they don't, to me, look that fantastic compared to ours. You might have been able to infer that given that I posted them in response to an argument that our doctors were poorly paid, indeed, in partial rebuttal of that argument, but I suppose inference isn't your strong point.

2. The New York Times article I linked to gives interesting comparative data some of which attempt to present salaries adjusted for purchasing-power parity, but well, if you don't care about that, so what, and also, in relation to average national income (but if you don't care about that. so what?)

Much of a US doctor's income goes on Malpractice insurance due to the propensity to sue for anything and everything there, and the existence of ambulance chasing lawyers..........

I know about medicine in the US, I no longer keep up with US medical blogs etc. and I don't read the NYT every day (because it's paywalled) but I do know about all this. And it's my belief many people here who don't do the reading I do know about it.

Now. Have you a point to make?

niktheguru

What people fail to realise is that doctors train for 5-6 years racking up student loans and now even ridiculous tuition fees. (granted the nhs does pay for tuition fees for the final two years, so medical students pay the fees for 3 years, just like non-medical graduates)

The starting basic salary for a FY1 doctor is around the £21k mark, most doctors get a percentage extra on top of that (called banding) depending on the unsociable hours (i.e. weekends and nights) included in their contract, this varies from 20% to 50% on top of basic pay. If you work in london you get an extra 1-2k due to higher costs.

So in reality a first year doctor earns around 30-34k.
Once you take off income tax, national insurance, pension contribution etc the real figure that you get in your hand is around 22k.

This seems ok, but don't forget there are a barrage of professional fees that are paid. They pay the GMC £500 just to be registered. If you have a professional membership qualification you pay around £300 annually just for it to stay valid. They have to pay for membership to the BMA and the various defence unions. All the professional education and courses that are compulsory to attend have to come out of their own pocket. e.g. advanced life support training (you would want your doctor to have that wouldn't you!) costs around £500, every course they go on varies in cost between £700 and £1500 a pop, and comes out of their own pocket. The postgraduate exams they sit cost well over £1000 each. You cannot progress in your career without these courses and exams and can easily spend thousands of pounds for these.

Yes, the hours have reduced to 40 hours a week, but in reality the majority of doctors work more than this but unpaid, whether it be that you have unwell patients that you can't just get up and leave when it is time to "clock off", and also sometimes we stay just so we can get trained.

Doctors have had a pay freeze for the last few years, so salaries haven't gone up with inflation and with the introduction of the european working time directive causing them to work less hours (i.e. up to 40 hrs a week) this has actually caused the pay to decrease.

Don't get me wrong, doctors enjoy their jobs. You cant imagine how satisfying it is treating patients. They are not on the breadline, and work hard for what they earn, but there is a very false opinion by the general public that doctors earn loads of money, the harsh reality is quite the opposite....at least for the hospital doctor. (yes GPs earn a lot for comparatively much less work, but that's another argument)

A hospital consultant can earn six figures, but just remember it usually takes around 10 years training after university (on salaries ranging from 20 to 60k), travel to work in hospitals all over the country, significant expenses etc to reach that stage.

Lily1

Very accurate post above except the hours. Doctors are contracted to 48 hours a week, which changes the hourly rate somewhat.

niktheguru

Good point lily, sorry, just a typo! :-)