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GPs’ average salary drops to £106,000
16 Sep 2009GPs are earning an average salary of £106,072 a year, new figures reveal today.
But the findings show that overall pay has dropped because the costs of running a surgery have increased.
The report, by the NHS Information Centre, shows that doctors who work for practices which also dispense prescriptions fare best. They take home an average £125,165 a year.
An analysis of tax returns reveals gross pay for GPs rose to £251,997 last year, representing a 1.9 per cent increase.
But their average expenses also rose to £145,925 last year — a 4.5 per cent increase on the year before.
The figures come as family doctors have secured a deal from the Government over swine flu jabs. They will receive £5.25 for every vaccination they give to patients.
The deal was secured this week after a wrangle over payments which had been going on all summer.
Doctors are already paid £7.50 a patient to give the seasonal flu vaccine and are understood to have initially wanted £7 a shot for swine flu.
Salaries were effectively frozen in 2007 after complaints over their high earnings.
But GPs still benefit from performance-related “extras” which are handed out depending on the quality of service that doctors provide.
About two thirds of their pay is effectively made up by a basic salary, with the rest depending on their performance carrying out a range of services such as vaccinations and blood pressure checks, monitoring asthma and coronary heart disease patients, and testing and diagnosing diabetes.
There was public outrage recently when it was revealed that doctors at the top end of the pay scale were earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
More than 1,000 GPs were earning over £200,000, including doctors who ran a pharmacy as well as surgery.
A new contract was introduced in 2003 which allowed them to opt out of providing care to patients in the evenings and at weekends.
But last year the British Medical Association was forced to back down over the controversial deal after the Government said doctors must be prepared to be more flexible over hours.
Reader views (8)
OH how my heart bleeds for them they only get over £2,000 a week, how do they manage, it makes my magnificent pension of under £200 look enormous.
- Fed Up, Leicester, 15/12/2009 16:12
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The only groups who warrant three figure salaries are :
1. Doctors
2. Police officers
3. Members of the armed forces
4. Fire officers
These are the people who are keeping us alive and safe (or trying to). To hell with MPs, bankers, footballers and television presenters - they don't deserve any more than the average salary - and we could all survive without them.
- R.F., Yorks, UK, 15/12/2009 15:12
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Around 10 years of training and around 60 hours working week. Sounds like a £100k job to me.
- Matty, London, 15/12/2009 15:12
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Footballers next! Let's see some bonuses capped, and salaries reduced by about 90% there!
- Francis Salvesen, London UK, 15/12/2009 15:12
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Spot on George and Matty. RF I appreciate your simplistic approach to who deserves what in life...but the practical issues of who generates the profits that pay the taxes that pay for public services and public servants means that the we can't survive without the companies and individuals with talents you think dont deserve £100k
- Paddy, London, 15/12/2009 15:12
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Doctors are getting money for olde rope. No wonder they can afford to buy up local pharmacies and move the pharmacy into the medical practise, to make yet more money.
Try speaking to a human being at 08.00 any morning by telephone at my local doctors' surgery.
Like everything else in the UK, it has gone to the dogs.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR, 15/12/2009 15:12
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I think that a GP earning £100K per annum is better value than a footballer earning £100K per week.
- George, Cambridge UK, 15/12/2009 15:12
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"How sad", I now realize now, why the quality of my care has fallen recently, thank you , I am so glad you have explained it to me.
Perhaps you could tell me where I could make a donation?
- David Crocket, Bradford, UK, 15/12/2009 15:12
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