The health secretary, Alan Milburn, has criticised consultants for profiting excessively from private work, describing the practice as one of the perverse incentives operating in Britain's NHS. “Consultants on maximum part time contracts earn nearly as much from the private sector as from the NHS,” he said.
Mr Milburn, who was speaking to an audience of health service managers at the Royal College of Surgeons last week, asked: “Why is it that despite large increases in consultant numbers over the last few decades, the average time people have had to wait has remained pretty constant?”
He expressed concern about the consultant contract, saying that it did not reward the hardest working doctors. He also attacked the culture of deference and hierarchy that was still present in the NHS.
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