Consultants' pay goes up, but productivity goes down, MPs told

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7552.1232

From trainee to consultant, BMJ Group offers doctors around the world tailored information, special events, learning resources and recruitment services at every step along their career path.

... by doctors, for doctors, for patients
We are open for entries!

Online learning

BMJ Learning

High-quality CME / CPD for doctors and other healthcare professionals. BMJ Learning features hundreds of accredited, peer-reviewed learning modules in text, video, and audio formats. Find out more

Courses and Qualifications

BMJ Masterclasses

BMJ Masterclasses, led by experts, help clinicians to use the latest evidence and recent guidelines in practice and meet their CPD/CME requirements. Find out more

Exam Preparation

The leading provider of online exam preparation, helping over 167,000 healthcare professionals to pass their exams. Find out more

onExamination

Search all BMJ research articles:

From

Limit by

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

Andrew Cole

London

UK consultants are being paid more as a result of their new NHS contracts, but productivity has probably diminished, the House of Commons health select committee, examining workforce planning, heard this week.

Professor Alan Craft, chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, explained that the contract had helped highlight the huge amount of overtime most consultants were working.

“Most consultants were probably working 60 hours a week. The standard has now gone down to 10 sessions, which is less than 40 hours. Employers have been working towards reducing everybody to the minimum number of contracted hours. So …