Gender Pay Gap Among National Health Service Doctors in England

The National Health Service is the publicly funded national healthcare system for England and one of the four National Health Services of the United Kingdom. It is the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world. NHS England provides healthcare to all legal English residents, with most services free at the point of use.

Recently, a BBC investigation pointed that Senior NHS female doctors are earning less than their male counterparts.

According to the investigation, in the top 100 earning consultants in England, just five are women, despite more than a third of the workforce being female.

It also revealed

1. The top-paid man earned nearly £740,000 - two-and-a-half times that of the top woman. On average, full-time women consultants earned nearly £14,000 a year less than men - a pay gap of 12%.
2. The following figures were obtained by the BBC following requests to individual health trusts, the government and NHS Digital.
3. The top-earning male consultant in England earned £739,460 in 2016-17. The best-paid woman got £281,616 by comparison
4. On average, full-time men in England earned £127,683, nearly £14,000 more than full-time women
5. When you strip out overtime and bonuses and just look at basic pay there was nearly £1,500 difference
6. Six-and-a-half times as many men as women in England and Wales get the top platinum award bonus worth £77,000 a year

The figures clearly indicated that there was a deliberate pay gap.

Doctors mentioned that pay difference might be due to the ability of men to work overtime. Unfortunately, the figure testifies the opposite. There is a distinct favouritism for men in terms of bonus and other incentives provided. While there was a sense of disappointment among staff, The Department of Health and Social Care assured to look into the matter.

It said: "We are committed to ensuring that our hardworking doctors are rewarded fairly and equally for their work, regardless of gender, and have commissioned an independent report alongside the medical profession to examine exactly how that can be achieved."

Gender Pay Gap has been spoken about a lot of times recently. Several data and report have also been released explaining the phenomenon. While awareness of data and statistics is quite imperative, necessary actions need to be taken by the concerned authorities. Actions that can bring down these numbers and also eliminate pay gap.

Also Read: Gender Discrimination at Workplace is a Truth, Globally

Reshma Ganeshbabu is an intern with SheThePeople.TV