Pay of Scottish GPs in rude health as one in 10 earns £125,000

THE number of high-earning GPs in Scotland has increased, with one in ten now receiving more than £125,000 a year.

Statistics published yesterday show that 9.8 per cent of GPs earned more than 125,000 before tax in 2008-9. This compared to 9.4 per cent the previous year, according to the NHS Information Centre. However, Scotland has far fewer high-earning family doctors than England, where 31.5 per cent of GPs earned more than 125,000.

The British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland pointed out that Scottish GPs earned far less than doctors elsewhere in the UK, and faced rising costs for expenses.

Increasing attention has been paid to doctors' pay in recent months, including bonus payments to senior consultants, which cost the NHS millions of pounds a year.

And last month The Scotsman's sister paper, Scotland on Sunday, revealed that the NHS faced a huge bill for providing out-of-hours cover over the festive holidays, with GPs paid up to 145 an hour to work during this period.

The NHS Information Centre figures revealed that the average pay before tax of contractor GPs - self-employed doctors contracted to provide NHS services - in Scotland was 86,500 in 2008-9 - down 1 per cent on the previous year. This compared to 109,600 in England, 90,700 in Wales and 89,700 in Northern Ireland. Lower pay in Scotland may be due to GPs having fewer patients.

The figures are based on tax-return information, so include both NHS and private earnings, and relate to earnings before tax. Out of a sample of 3,730 GPs looked at in Scotland, 370 earned more than 125,000 in 2008-9, compared to 340 the year before from a sample of 3,619.

Pay for salaried GPs - those employed directly by health boards - was also lower in Scotland at 55,000 compared with 57,400 in England and 59,200 in Wales.

Part of the reason for falling salaries may be due to rising expenses faced by practices. Expenses paid by GPs, covering areas such as buildings and staff pay, increased 2.3 per cent in 2008-9 to 102,100. On top of their earnings, GPs will also have contributions made to their state pension by the NHS.

At a UK-level, the figures also revealed that 700 GPs had a pre-tax income of between 200,000 and 250,000, up from 650 the previous year. There were also 250 GPs with an income of at least 250,000. No breakdown for Scotland was available.

Margaret Watt, chair of the Scotland Patients Association, said high wages needed to be reined in.

"Under the constraints we have got at the moment in the NHS, if we don't put a cap on some of these things, it is going to run away with us," she said.

Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of the BMA's Scottish GPs committee, said: "It's not a surprise to find that GP pay has fallen for the third year in a row. We expect this trend to continue, because the cost of running a GP surgery has been rising, while practice income has been frozen."GPs in Scotland are still earning significantly less than GPs in England, and the rest of the UK, despite the higher levels of disease prevalence in Scotland."