26 May 2000
Junior doctors were expected to agree a new contract and pay package on May 25. But just as this potentially embarrassing dispute comes to an end, another has emerged.
Health Secretary Alan Milburn told the Royal College of Surgeons last week that consultants would be central to the government's war on waiting lists. But he asked whether the current contract, which allows around 40% of NHS consultants to earn unlimited amounts in private practice and the remainder up to 10% of their salary from private work, creates an incentive to keep waiting lists long.
The Department of Health and the British Medical Association are renegotiating the consultant contract. The private practice sections date back to 1948, when Aneurin Bevan offered them to encourage consultants to join the NHS. He later described the deal as 'stuffing their mouths with gold'.
While ministers are unlikely to try to scrap consultants' private practice, they are certain to insist on closer monitoring.
The Commons health select committee will throw consultants' contracts further into the spotlight when it holds an inquiry next month into how these affect the time consultants spend in the NHS and how this affects the service.
Senior hospital doctors' NHS workload will also be a major topic of debate at the British Medical Association's annual consultants' conference on June 1.
Dr Peter Hawker, BMA consultants' committee chairman, said competing pressures were stretching senior doctors to the limit. 'Hospital doctors are carrying a huge workload and unable to give each patient the time they really need. New resources will help provide some of the immediate improvements the government wants but major, lasting change can only be achieved as new consultants come on stream.'
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