HSE paid hospital consultant more than €640,000 last year

One health service employee received more than €640,000 in total payments from the HSE last year, an official report states.

The person concerned is understood to be a hospital consultant who carries out a significant amount of locum cover. This kind of work can more than double the basic salary for the position prior to the inclusion of other potential payments such as clinical allowances or on-call fees.

The HSE's annual report for last year, which has been submitted to the Oireachtas in recent days, shows that a second individual received €590,000-€600,000 in total payments from the HSE last year while a third received €510,000-€520,000. Both of these are also understood to be hospital consultants working for the HSE.

In one case the total amount includes additional money provided as part of a settlement reached in 2018 between the then government and medical specialists arising from an alleged breach of a contract they agreed with the State in 2008.

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The HSE report says a total of 23,412 of its employees received total payments in excess of €60,000 last year. The totals would include basic pay, allowances, overtime, night duty, weekends, on-call and arrears but exclude employer PRSI and pension costs.

Private practice

The figures for HSE payments to the consultants concerned cover earnings only from the public health system. It is not known whether the doctors concerned have any contractual rights to treat fee-paying patients or whether they engage in any form of private practice.

There are a number of different hospital consultant contracts in place in the HSE, with different rates applying depending on whether they are permitted to carry out private practice. Within these contracts the specialists concerned can earn different sums as they move along the respective pay scales. There are also higher salaries in place for academic consultants.

Overall, the basic pay rates can range from less than €110,000 to about €250,000 a year depending on the type of contract and position on the pay scale.

Payments to some hospital consultants over the past year or so have been increased as a result of the settlement of the legal case in 2018. The HSE last year paid out about €100 million in retrospective payments to consultants under the settlement arrangement.