GPs’ average salary drops to £106,000

12 April 2012

GPs 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.

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