Health / Health board defends £375,000 salary for clinician with ‘generalist’ skills set
NHS SHETLAND has confirmed one of its clinicians is earning around £375,000 a year – making them one of the highest paid public sector employees in Scotland.
The figure was revealed in a country-wide investigation into public sector salaries by the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
The £375,000 paid by NHS Shetland was the third highest public salary in Scotland. The principal of Stirling University, Prof Sir Gerry McCormac, has been identified as the highest paid public sector employee at £410,000.
Photo: Shetland News
The remuneration package for the unnamed NHS Shetland clinician is double the size of what both NHS Shetland chief executive Brian Chittick and the board’s medical director Kirsty Brightwell take home.
In total, NHS Shetland employs six clinicians who all earn salaries above the £200,000 a year mark.
The board’s director of finance Colin Marsland said experienced clinicians with “generalist” skill, needed in remote and rural communities, were difficult to recruit.
He said NHS Shetland was relying on clinicians with a “generalist” rather than a specialist background to meet the diverse healthcare needs of the local population.
“Over the past several decades, UK medical training pathways have increasingly focused on developing specialist expertise, which has led to a national shortage of generalist-trained clinicians,” he told Shetland News.
“This presents particular challenges for remote and rural areas such as Shetland, where recruitment into roles requiring a wide scope of practice, combined with significant out-of-hours and on-call commitments, can be difficult.
“Due to these national workforce challenges, we may engage individuals on alternative arrangements, such as hourly rates, to ensure continuity of care for our patients.
“We continue to actively recruit to our vacant consultant positions, and, like many other NHS organisations, face a highly competitive market where demand for experienced clinicians with the necessary generalist skill set exceeds current supply.”
NHS Shetland chairman Gary Robinson and local MSP Beatrice Wishart have been contacted for comment.
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