NHS doctors told to declare income from private work

NHS doctors in England are to be made to declare their income from private work, under plans to boost transparency and avoid conflicts of interest

NHS England chairman Sir Malcolm Grant, who led a review on the issue, told the Times the details should be published in a hospital register from April.

Sir Malcolm denied it was an attempt to restrict private work by consultants.

Doctors said their contracts meant they had to offer extra time to the NHS before they could do private work.

Under the proposals every hospital will have to publish a register of consultants’ earnings from private work next year.

‘Under the radar’

Sir Malcolm said: “It’s not an attempt to curb private work by consultants. Let’s just have some transparency here. Much of what goes on in these communities is almost under the radar.”

About half of England’s 46,000 NHS consultants are believed to do private work, on top of the average basic salary of £89,000 a year.

Within the review concerns were raised that some senior doctors may have been spending too much time seeing private patients while handing too much work to junior colleagues or even using NHS waiting lists to boost outside work.