Sir, – I think it is worth correcting the inaccuracies in Prof Frank Carey’s letter (June 23rd). He maintained that salaries paid to consultants in Ireland are “more than twice the amount paid to equivalents in the UK”.
If you took, for example, a consultant pathologist working in a general hospital with 16 years experience and a B merit award, the gross pay he would receive working in the NHS would indeed work out less than a consultant pathologist with 16 years experience working on, the most common, Category B, contract in a Dublin hospital (about £141,500 stg vs €176,000 per annum). But after taking into account the differences in income tax, USC, etc, the equivalent Dublin consultant’s net take home pay would actually be slightly less than his; and cost of living, average mortgage, etc, would be 10-20 per cent higher.
The Dublin consultant may have their “infinitely greater private practice” of course, but in this cannot, under the new contract for most consultants, amount to more than 20 per cent of their public practice, a level not unusual in many areas of the UK.
Addressing the “shorter working week”: having worked in both the UK and Ireland, the official working week is not substantially different at 37 hours in Ireland; and 10 programmed activities, essentially half days, in the UK. The UK consultant would, however have time for administration, continuous medical education, etc, included in his work plan constituting up to up to one-third of his programmed hours which the Irish consultant would not and would typically have to complete outside his official working week.
Finally, the Irish consultant would not be paid additional programmed activities for working an on-call rota or alternatively receive time off in lieu of oncall which is now a common situation in the UK.
In medicine, as in all professions and jobs there are exceptions and individuals who are comparatively well paid. In Scotland (population 5.2 million), where Prof Carey practises, there are, as of May 2011, 46 consultants with A+ merit awards typically earning in excess of £175,000 per year. There are a further 146 consultants with A merit awards who can earn up to £160,000 per year from their public practice.
While Irish consultants are undeniably well paid, I think Prof Carey may be somewhat misled in the extent of differences with the UK. – Yours, etc,