Recruitment firm offers locum GPs £1,200 a day to work between now until New Year
By Eleanor Harding|
Doctors are being paid £1,200 per day to work as locums in GP surgeries and other local services, it emerged last night.
They are being recruited to work up to 12 hour sessions in service across Oxfordshire from now until New Year.
The lucrative offer was uncovered when the recruiters, Merco Recruitment Ltd, posted an advertisement online.
Lucrative: Doctors are being recruited to work
up to 12 hour sessions in service across Oxfordshire from now until New
Year for around £1,200 a day
Two years ago it was revealed that the NHS spends more than £750million a year on temporary doctors - many from overseas who would not normally get work in the NHS.
The outcry drew attention to the astronomical sums paid to locums - and health chiefs pledged to crack down on the practice.
In one example, a doctor was paid £5,700 for a 24-hour shift in an A&E unit.
As well as the huge cost to the NHS, doctors leaders criticise the hidden impact of insufficient cover, poorer training and inadequate shift systems, says the Royal College of Surgeons.
One consultant surgeon, who recently moved from a London teaching hospital, told the Daily Mail that the 48-hour limit was a 'complete disaster' and leading to an 'unsafe' system.
Figures show the NHS spends more than
£750million a year on temporary doctors - many from overseas who would
not normally get work in the NHS
Some of the spend is for doctors already working in the hospitals who take on temporary shifts, but external agencies accounted for £467million last year.
