BMA ‘rate card’ wipes out elective recovery gains, claims trust

A struggling acute trust says its failure to hit its elective care targets is directly linked to doctors’ demanding overtime rates in line with the British Medical Association’s rate cards, as national tensions around the issue intensify.

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust’s January performance report said its elective activity was down by around 1,000 cases over a two-month period, due to the issue.

Last summer, the BMA published a “rate card” outlining the “minimum” hourly pay consultants should receive for additional work, such as waiting list initiatives and weekend shifts. Some accused the union of “acting like football agents” by trying to inflate their members’ pay.

NHS chiefs have long been warning of the risk the rate card poses to elective recovery. But there are few examples of a trust making such an explicit link between their struggle to staff overtime shifts because of the rate card and subsequent failure to hit their elective targets, and placing a number on how many patients they were forced to add to the list because of the issue.

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Source: HSJ, 1 March 2023