HOSPITAL doctors are earning more than £2000 a day on top of their salaries by cramming in operations at weekends that attract lucrative triple-time payments.
Some consultants have been working the equivalent of a 14-hour day on Sundays in order to scoop the special premium rate.
Hospital employees working full-time on the living wage would have to work nearly seven weeks to earn £2000. Oppositions MSPs have called for reform of NHS contracts.
Under the 2004 consultants' contract, doctors do not have to perform non-emergency work at weekends, public holidays or after 8pm. However, they can choose to work outside their contracted hours by carrying out waiting list initiative (WLI) work.
The rate, paid at up to £150 an hour, is on top of a basic salary that can exceed £100,000.
Since January 2013, seven consultants at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) were paid more than £1500 for work carried out on a single Sunday. Four doctors earned more than £2000 for the same shift. One earned more than £50,000 for Sunday shifts alone between January last year and October 2014.
At NHS Tayside, 57 consultants earned more than £1500 for work on a single Sunday. For radiologists at the same board, 12 consultants earned more than £2000 for weekend work, which could be for a Saturday, Sunday, or both. One consultant earned more than £2000 17 times for weekend shifts.
A £1500 Sunday payment is the equivalent of a 10-hour day, while £2000 is closer to 14 hours.
Doctors can opt out of the European Working Time Directive, which stops employers requiring staff to work excessively long hours.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: "If we really want the NHS to be a 24/7 operation, excessive payments like this have to stop. It can hardly be in the best interests of patients for a doctor to bust a gut on a Sunday, only to be worn out the rest of the week.
"This is why we need a comprehensive plan on how to make the NHS run all week, without having to hand out bribes to those already well remunerated."
Liberal Democrat MSP Jim Hume said: "Everyone wants patients to be treated quickly. Health boards should be planning their services to avoid using these super-expensive contracts. That way they can treat more patients for the same money they appear to be spending on Sunday services."
A spokesperson for NHSGGC said: "Tackling waiting times is a significant priority for the Scottish Government, and the NHS in Scotland, and is a key delivery measure. Waiting list initiatives have been used to ensure that patients are treated within the targets and guarantees set over the past four years, latterly within 18 weeks of referral to treatment."
At NHS Tayside, a spokesperson said: "Payments made by NHS Tayside to consultants under the waiting times initiative are agreed as part of national contracts."
Dr Nikki Thompson, chair of the British Medical Association's Scottish consultants' committee, said: "Waiting list initiative payments were negotiated to enable boards to enlist consultants to provide additional services on an occasional basis, in order to reduce waiting lists. This work is only ever undertaken at the specific request of the employer, and the enhanced pay rate reflects the ad hoc nature of the work, and the inconvenience and disruption to family life that results."
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