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GPs on Medway's new health board earn equivalent of more than £100k a year

Dr Nathan Nathan
Dr Nathan Nathan

A doctor tasked with giving Medway patients value for money is being paid £25,000 – for three days’ work a month.

Dr Subir Mukherjee’s salary is just one part of a pay bill for board members of Medway’s new Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

The group is designed to save money by letting local GPs buy in £315m of services.

But every GP on the board is earning the equivalent of more than £100,000 a year.

Chief clinical officer, Dr Peter Green, of the Parks Medical Practice in Rochester, is being paid £111,000 for four days a week.

While chairman Dr Nathan Nathan (pictured) earns £87,360 for three days a week.

Three other GPs are being paid £58,000 for two days a week, and a nurse is being paid £16,000 for three days a month.

Even two lay members, chosen for their lack of medical training, are earning £8,000 each for three days a month.

Cllr Teresa Murray (Lab)
Cllr Teresa Murray (Lab)

Medway Council’s Labour health spokesman Cllr Teresa Murray (right) said: “The new CCG members are enjoying very high levels of pay from the public purse which far exceed the pay for NHS nurses and healthcare workers.”

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the right-wing pressure group TaxPayers’ Alliance, said it was “eye-watering”.

He added: “This an incredible pay bill. The health budget should be spent on patient care, not exorbitant salaries for part-time governors.”

The CCG published the figures after they were agreed by a remuneration panel – made up of four of their own board members.

Dr Mukherjee was one of the four, all of whom only work three days a month. However he is on secondment so his pay goes straight to his employer, another hospital trust.

Lay member David Lewis, the former audit chief at Medway Maritime Hospital who chaired the remuneration panel, said CCG members should be “no better or worse off” for being on the board.

“This an incredible pay bill. The health budget should be spent on patient care, not exorbitant salaries for part-time governors” - Matthew Sinclair, of the Taxpayers' Alliance

Non-board member Dr Julian Spinks, of Court View Surgery in Darnley Road, Strood, said he sympathised.

“This is about what it costs to run their surgeries while they’re away,” he said. “It costs £500 a day to hire a locum doctor.

“Some years ago I was offered a £6,000 job for half a day a week and I turned it down because it was going to cost me more to get locum cover.

A CCG spokesperson said: “The CCG’s Remuneration Committee followed national NHS guidance.”

Payments were “in line with practice earnings and local session rates”, she said, adding: “This enables GPs to ensure their patients’ needs continue to be met when they are working on CCG business.”

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