BBC boozers spent almost £250,000 of licence money on Christmas parties.
Crew and stars guzzled up to £50 each at 13 bashes in bars and restaurants.
Radio 1 blew £18,000 on 600 guests and EastEnders £10,575 on 500. HQ staff got through £120,000.
Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "This is an obscene amount to spend when the BBC is pleading poverty.
By Daniel Martin, Health Reporter
THE number of GPs earning more than £250,000 has doubled in a year.
The average family doctor in England now earns £113,600, according to official figures yesterday.
Despite the pay increase, they work about seven fewer hours a week than they did before 2004.
That was the year a new contract allowed GPs to opt out of responsibility for patients outside of working hours.
The salaries were agreed as part of the contract.
Campaigners criticised the rises last night. Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said: 'GPs are 10 per cent better off but their patients are not.
'Patients have to pay more than ever for their NHS and are entitled to expect a better service.
'What they have had to put up with far too often is a system riddled with fault lines, office hours only, delayed appointments, poor communications and retribution if they complain.' Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, added: 'This is an astonishing amount to pay GPs when the service received by patients has improved so little.
'At three times the rate of inflation, it's difficult to see why GPs deserve this pay rise.'
A total of 307 GPs earned more than £250,000 in 2006/07, up from 154 the year before, according to yesterday's figures for 2005/06 from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care.
Some 815 earn between £200,000 and £250,000 - almost double the previous year's figure.
More than 19,532 GPs earn more than £100,000 - compared to 14,343 who earn less. In England, GPs take home an average of £113,600. In Wales, the figure is £102,194, while in Northern Ireland-it is £98,656 and in Scotland £90,619.
The British Medical Association, which represents doctors during pay negotiations with the Government, said GPs were worth every penny.
Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's GP committee, said: 'Most of the increase in GP pay in recent years has come from the extra resources that GPs earn if they offer higher quality patient care. The outcome from this raised quality is a better standard of health.'
In real terms, the average salary was likely to fall in subsequent years, he said, as the Government has pegged pay rises to 0 per cent for the past two years.
However, the performance-related element of the contract means salaries could still increase. GPs are paid extra for procedures such as blood tests or counting obese patients.
The BMA threatened to turn away new patients and cut services in response to the pay freeze.
Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: 'We believe GPs are senior professionals and should be paid as such. But GPs should take increasing responsibility for the commissioning of services for patients.'
Pay rises for GPs and consultants, which cost the Government more than expected, have been blamed in part for NHS deficits. MPs on the Commons health select committee branded GP pay as 'excessive'.
A BMA representative who negotiated the GPs' contract described it as 'a bit of a laugh' that pay rose while they were allowed to pull out of responsibility for patients before 8am, after 6.30pm, and at weekends.
More than 90 per cent decided to do so. Primary care trusts took over responsibility and have brought in private firms to take over.
But the services are not as effective, according to the Committee. It described out- of-hours care as a 'shambles'.
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: 'It is right that GPs should be rewarded for the care they provide to patients. The current contract has helped boost GP numbers and improve care for patients. But we do want to see GPs offering more convenient and flexible opening hours.
'We will be working with GPs to ensure that at least 50 per cent of practices extend their opening hours and we are taking action to tie GP income more closely to patient experiences.'
The BMA said high- earning GPs were in charge of big practices, employing lots of doctors or also dispensing drugs.
The first 'citizens' juries' on the future of the NHS cost taxpayers nearly £900,000 – prompting claims they simply reward Labour cronies.
The first of the Prime Minister's much-vaunted 'new type of politics' sessions were each priced at £96,547.
Nine of the public consultation meetings – described by critics as expensive 'talking shops' – were held across Britain last month.
The total sum of £868,930 was paid to organiser Opinion Leader Research – Mr Brown's favourite private pollsters, run by former Labour researcher Debbie Mattinson.
Matthew Elliott, head of the Taxpayers' Alliance campaign group, said: 'This cash is going to Gordon Brown's favourite personal pollster – is it simply paying them back for all the work they've done in the past?'
Shadow Health Minister Stephen O'Brien said the focus groups were a waste of taxpayers'money. 'If Labour was serious about listening, they would hear patients when they say they want to keep their local A&E and maternity services,' he said.
The consultations allowed more than 1,000 people to voice their concerns ahead of health minister Lord Darzi's review of the NHS.
The Department of Health said the costs included 'project management, venue hire, design and production, recruitment, analysis and reporting'.
A spokesman insisted consultations were 'fundamental to understanding what people want from their NHS'.
FAMILY doctors will today admit that out-of-hours care has dramatically deteriorated since they were allowed to opt out of working at evenings and weekends.
Nearly two-thirds of GPs think standards have slipped since Primary Care Trusts took over the service in 2004, a survey reveals.
Only just over half of those who become ill outside office hours now see a doctor. The rest are visited by nurses or are given advice over the phone.
One family doctor interviewed by the GPs' magazine Pulse said that sending nurses to patients was 'inappropriate' and amounted to 'conning the public'.
One in five patients questioned in a separate poll said they received 'poor' or 'very poor' out-of-hours care.
Richard Hoey, deputy editor of Pulse, said: 'The Government keeps insisting out- of-hours care is improving, but that's not the message we're getting from doctors or patients.
'The fact is that ministers hugely underestimated the size of the task in running outofhours services, so when trusts took over responsibility many lacked the funding or expertise to do so adequately.
'But doctors are not going to go back to the old days - when they ran services with little recognition or reward.'
Last night campaigners said it was ironic that GPs should be deriding out-of-hours care when it is they who should really be providing it.
Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance pressure group, said: 'It's a bit rich for GPs to now say that out-of-hours services are so poor when it was them who pulled out of providing it. People who pay their taxes and have seen their National Insurance contributions-rise to pay for the NHS will be disappointed to see that the money is being spent so badly.'
The survey comes after more than 90 per cent of family doctors opted out of responsibility for their patients outside working hours as part of a lucrative new contract.
This has seen their average pay soar by almost 60 per cent in three years. Ministers were surprised by the number of doctors who decided they would take a £6,000 pay cut in order to give up out-of-hours care.
Trusts have employed a mixture of in-house teams and private firms to plug the gaps but complaints have soared.
An investigation also revealed that the amount spent by trusts on out- of-hours- care varies widely across England and Wales.
While Birmingham East and North trust spends just £2.43 per patient per year, Pembrokeshire spends £17.62.
It has also emerged that rising numbers of patients are ringing 999 or turning up at overstretched A&E departments.
In the Pulse poll, almost half of the 880 GPs surveyed admitted patients had complained about out-of-hours care in the past year.
Some said trusts were increasingly using nurses rather than doctors and too many were relying on 'telephone triage' rather than face-to-face consultations.
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw yesterday defended the policy of letting GPs stop providing out-of-hours care, saying: 'Primary care trusts have a legal responsibility to make sure patients are well cared-for during the out-of-hours period'.
NURSES will be trained in how to feed patients properly after ministers admitted the elderly were effectively being starved to death on hospital wards.
Health minister Ivan Lewis admitted that too many nurses had moved away from their core role of caring for the sick.
'The vast majority of nurses do their best in very difficult circumstances but there are some examples of sheer neglect and malpractice that should be subject to disciplinary action,' he said.
Mr Lewis has unveiled an action plan, coming into effect next year, which is designed to tackle poor nutrition in NHS hospitals. It includes regular weigh-ins for elderly patients.
But none of the measures in the plan will be compulsory, which patients' groups say is not acceptable.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said last night: 'This data confirms the financial folly of employing agency staff rather than permanent staff.
'This strategy always looks like it will save money but actually ends up costing more.
'Hospitals should be more careful with patients' money so there are enough funds for life-saving treatments, many of which are currently restricted on the NHS.'
THE NHS will have to pay Pounds 9.2BILLION compensation for botched care, bosses admit.
The figure is ten per cent up on last year's estimate - and grows Pounds 2.7million a day.
It covers all claims expected in years to come by the NHS Litigation Authority, which deals with payouts.
This year it paid a record Pounds 613million - including Pounds 424million on clinical negligence cases. The body is paid into by NHS trusts, but taxpayers must pick up the bill.
Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "This is out of control. Too many procedures are going wrong and we need an investigation."
Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "We pay record levels of money into the NHS, so we shouldn't get third-world treatment."
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Cases like this demonstrate the problems of a centrally run health service. When ministers are in charge, they allocate money to politically correct operations rather than addressing real medical concerns.
"These operations shouldn't be funded when ordinary taxpayers are having to go without life-saving drugs and critical operations."
IMMIGRANTS who can't speak English are being sent to the FRONT of NHS out-patient queues...while locals are left waiting in clinics for hours.
Patients who need interpreters are being given priority by hospital trusts—because bosses reckon it's cheaper than having costly translators hanging about.
It means that at busy times non-English speakers are instantly shunted to the front of the queue.
But the policy has infuriated patients' groups, who claim it shows ordinary Britons are being discriminated against.
At one outpatient clinic—the London Chest Hospital, at Bethnal Green in the East End— signs clearly warn visitors: "Patients needing trust interpreters will be given priority."
Locals are outraged at the move by London and Barts NHS Trust, which runs the Chest Hospital.
One said: "It should be a case that those in most need go first—not because of what language they may or may not speak.
"Having to wait longer just adds to people's stress and anxiety, when they are already under a lot of pressure."
Another added: "I don't understand why needing someone to translate for you should make you any more important. It's a very unfair system." But Michael Summers, vice-chairman of the trust's Patients' Association, said: "There are always long queues for outpatient services, sometimes as much as four hours, and hospitals don't want to have to keep paying a translator for all that time.
"At the same time, I can appreciate why patients become irritated by this."
Trust spokeswoman Marie Mangan said: "Like most NHS Trusts, when a clinic is over-running every effort is made to ensure that those patients who are using trust interpreters are seen at their allotted appointment time."
The policy comes after a major government report revealed how so-called health tourism costs the NHS more than £62MILLION a year, more than half of which is never recovered.
Recent figures also show that a staggering £100MILLION is being spent every year on translators in the public sector.
Anti-waste group The Taxpayers' Alliance said: "It's rubbing salt in the wound when people see the NHS struggling— and at same time, the British taxpayers who fund it are never being put first."
MR ANGRY HITS BACK
SO now it's official - if you are an English-speaking taxpayer you go to the bottom of the NHS waiting list.
Our health service should treat everybody EQUALLY - not give preference to the select few who speak whatever lingo happens to be politically correct.
It disgusts me that speakers of overseas languages are allowed to jump the queue. If it was the other way around and people who speak foreign languages were treated last, the NHS would be prosecuted for racial discrimination.
So why are our misguided hospital chiefs allowed to discriminate against English-speakers?
By Cyril Dixon
FOREIGN embassy officials are among overseas patients who owe NHS hospitals more than £100million in unpaid bills, it emerged yesterday.
Staff from the London consulates of Cyprus, Kuwait and Qatar have failed to pay more than £1million for treatment.
The unpaid bills deprive hospitals of much-needed funds that could pay for medical staff or equipment.
Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: "It is an abuse of our National Health Service if those who are not entitled to free treatment get access to care but then do not pay their bills. I would urge the Department of Health to act, especially with foreign embassies, to enforce payment."
Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The Government should crack down on health tourists freeriding at our expense. It's not the World Health Service, it's the National Health Service."
London's Royal Free and University College hospitals are owed more than £1million by Cypriots, Kuwaitis and Qataris. Hospital managers said that the debts were less than three months old.
The Royal Free, in Hampstead, is owed £4.5million from overseas and private patients. One person owes the hospital £104,000.
Last year, a survey of 106 hospitals by the Tories found that of £27million spent treating overseas patients, about £10million was not repaid.
One NHS manager said:
"With the money we are owed we could build two new district general hospitals."
By Derek Johnson
NHS
Dear Editor, It is about time that Steve McCabe MP and the Labour Party realised that they do not have a monopoly on matters affecting the National Health Service. His tired old inaccurate mantra that the "nasty Tories" starved the NHS of funds when they were last in power does absolutely nothing to allay the concerns of those worried about the future of the City Hospital. In fact, Mr McCabe would do well to remember that it has been the Conservative councillor and Parliamentary spokesman for Edgbaston, Deirdre Alden, who has long been at the forefront of the campaign to preserve A & E services on the site.
Therefore, although Emma Brady in
her background article was correct in highlighting the fact that there was nothing new in David Cameron's assertion that district hospitals are under threat from the Government's reforms (Post, Aug. 21), Mr Cameron was fully entitled to promise it a "bare-knuckled fight" over what he sees as the Government's failure to provide the public with value for money from the NHS.
As a taxpayer, I am extremely annoyed that the record sums of money pumped into the NHS since 1997 has not translated itself into a better service
for patients. The postcode rationing of drugs, the longest GP waiting times in history, and the failure to ensure that superbugs such as MRSA do not take hold in hospital wards, have all been recurrent themes throughout this government's stewardship of the NHS. These failures, added to the recent administrative calamity of the botched implementation of the junior doctor centralised recruitment system, and as recently highlighted by the Taxpayers' Alliance, the £336 million cost overrun in the building of Birmingham's University Hospital all constitute an appalling record of mismanagement by the government.
If he wishes, the uber-loyalist Mr McCabe can maintain his complacency over the problems in the NHS and continue to hark back to a tired old script of twenty years ago. Meanwhile, the hard-pressed patient and taxpayer wants to know why the government has failed and what it intends to do to improve the health service.
David Cameron and the Conservatives may not have all the answers about healthcare, but they have a duty to hold the Government to account on the public's behalf.
They should be heard with respect, despite what Steve McCabe may think.
DEREK JOHNSON Birmingham
By Nicole Martin
THE NHS is spending almost pounds 1 million a week on anti-obesity drugs as doctors fight to help patients to lose weight, official figures show.
In the first three months of this year, GPs issued 291,138 anti-obesity prescriptions at a cost of pounds 12 million, according to data from the Prescription Pricing Authority.
This is set to reach pounds 47.9 million by the end of the year, up 10.5 per cent on last year.
The drug Xenical, which inhibits fat absorption, and Reductil, an appetite suppressant, were recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in 2001.
Doctors can prescribe them if patients have failed to lose weight after three months of dieting and exercise.
Corin Taylor, the research director for the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "People should take more responsibility for their own lives instead of expecting taxpayers to continue to foot the bill.''
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: "In the right circumstances, these drugs are appropriate.
"The worry is that some people turn to these drugs as a quick fix.'
The NHS is spending nearly £1 million a week on fat-fighting drugs as it battles to control Britain's obesity epidemic, new statistics have revealed.
Demand grew by ten per cent in the last year with doctors now writing over 3,200 prescriptions a day for the slimming pills.
This is forecast to reach £47.9 million by the end of the year - a rise of 10.5 per cent to the NHS bill from 2006.
The figures also show a strong north/south divide with some primary care trusts in the north of England spending almost ten times as much on the drugs as those in the south.
In total the NHS looks set to have to fork out almost £50 million this year on slimming pills for fat people.
This massive bill is without calculating the indirect costs associated with obesity such as diabetes, high blood pressure and increased incidence of cancers.
Corin Taylor, Research Director for the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "There is no incentive for the people receiving fat-fighting drugs to live a healthier lifestyle.
"People should take more responsibility for their own lives instead of expecting taxpayers to continue to foot the bill.
"It's ridiculous that we have a health care system that throws individual responsibility out of the window and allows costs to spiral out of control."
The statistics, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show demand for diet pills continues to grow despite government campaigns stressing the importance of exercise and healthy diet.
Doctors are told to offer patients pills only if "at least three months of managed care involving supervised diet, exercise and behaviour modification fails to achieve a realistic reduction in weight," according to the drug dispensers' manual the British National Formulary.
There are two types of slimming pills, one that reduces the absorption of fat in the intestine and the second which stops the brain's 'feel good factor' normally associated with eating.
Big Matters is a UK-based support group for obese and overweight people. Spokesman Susannah Gilbert said: "Whilst drugs or bariatric surgery can help some people the issues surrounding the problem of obesity in the UK are complex.
"It has become very clear from all the people who contact us that dealing with obesity requires a holistic approach - there is no quick fix.
"An infrastructure of practical, medical and emotional support is needed whilst linking in with addressing the root causes of obesity across the country.
"If people can get help before serious medical conditions, such as heart disease, arise it should, in the long term, benefit both the individual and the NHS. We believe reaching out to support children has to be a fundamental part of the way forward."
In 2006 doctors issued 1,060,008 slimming prescriptions at a cost to the taxpayer of £43.3 million. That is 80 pence for every man, woman and child in the country.
Figures for the first quarter of this year show these numbers are on the rise. In just the first three months of 2007 doctors wrote 291,138 'obese prescriptions' costing £12 million.
Adult obesity rates have almost quadrupled in the last 25 years and this growth is expected to continue.
The Department of Health says one in five British adults are currently obese but this could rise to one in three by 2010.
Controversial: Dr Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association, says obese people are just greedy
A senior doctor last week claimed that the obese are being treated as if they have a medical problem when often they simply eat too much and exercise too little.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association, argued that the 'over-medicalisation' of weight gain meant that many individuals failed to take responsibility for their own health.
Doctors are being expected to dish out pills and carry out surgical interventions that have 'limited benefits', according to Dr Meldrum, a GP practising in Yorkshire.
He added: "We are tending to say, 'This patient has a hyper-appetite problem' rather than maybe they are eating too much.
"People like to put fancy labels that suggest things are a medical problem, but obesity is not just a problem for GPs, it is societal. All of us, myself included, need to take some responsibility for our own health.
"Obesity is in danger of becoming overmedicalised. Patients may think that surgery and medication are the answer but these are measures that offer limited benefit, even to the grossly obese.
"They should be seen as a last resort and I believe prevention is much better than cure."
Many GPs are being paid at least £250,000 a year, it emerged yesterday.
Official figures show that almost half of family doctors now have annual earnings in excess of £100,000, while one in ten receives more than £150,000.
Around 150 are being paid more than £250,000.
Average GP salaries in England have smashed through the six-figure barrier following a lucrative contract which came into effect in 2004.
The increases come despite the fact that GPs are working around six fewer hours a week than they were before the contract.
And more than 90 per cent of them opted out of the responsibility for their patients outside the hours of 8am and 6.30pm, as well as at weekends and bank holidays.
News of their continuing bonanza will cause anger - coming as it does at a time when nurses in England are threatening industrial action after a below-inflation pay increase of 1.9 per cent.
Doctors' leaders have previously claimed that average salaries are skewed by a small number of very highly paid GPs.
But for the first time, figures show that while there is a new class of super-rich doctors, 46 per cent of all GPs are living a very comfortable life earning more than £100,000.
Critics last night hit out at the vast salaries given to family doctors who close their surgeries at evenings and weekends, forcing patients to use out- of-hours services over the phone or in hospitals.
The figures from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care also show that England's 30,000 GPs earn more than in any of the other parts of the UK.
In Scotland, average pay is more than £20,000 less.
They show that in the first full year of the GP contract, earnings rose by 22.8 per cent for the UK overall.
In England, the typical GP took home £103,654 - much more than the £82,696 average north of the border.
Across the UK, one in 200 GPs enjoyed an annual take-home pay of more than £250,000.
Only round 9 per cent had a net income of less than £50,000.
Dispensing GPs - those who dispensed prescription drugs at their practice - earned more. They took home an average of £119,566.
Dr Laurence Buckman, acting chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, said the figures included both private and NHS work.
He said: "For GPs this would cover items like insurance medicals or completion of non-NHS forms.
"Other income could include payment for providing specialist services in the community, work done for health authorities, occupational health services for companies as well as revenue from dispensing.
"Dispensing doctors are a minority of GPs, often in rural areas, who run a dispensing pharmacy alongside their practice and thus have a second source of income."
He added: "The earnings findings cover only the income of selfemployed GPs and do not include the incomes of salaried GPs who now constitute about a third of the family doctor workforce."
GPs' pay soared following the introduction of a new contract in 2004.
One of the doctors who helped negotiate the contract said his team could not believe their luck with the deal which allowed them to drop outofhours work at the same time as pocketing a huge salary increase.
And a survey out earlier this year showed that more than one in four GPs had taken out private health insurance.
In March an influential committee of MPs attacked the Government for a "disastrous failure" of policy.
They condemned the pay rises for GPs and consultants as "expensive" and "arguably excessive".
And they said the contracts had helped plunge many health trusts into deficit because the pay rises cost much more than the Government expected.
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: "We invested significant extra funding in GP services both to improve services and reward GPs.
"We expect a certain level of these profits to be invested back into their businesses, to bring about further improvements in services for patients, such as longer opening hours or widening the range of services."
Before their new contract the average salary for GPs was less than £70,000.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "It is disappointing that GPs are earning this much at a time when the NHS is under severe financial pressure.
"Nobody denies that GPs should earn a decent wage. But more than £100,000 is a lot of money especially when they don't offer things like outofhours care or home visits, which they used to."
Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "If the service had improved you could begin to justify these massive salaries, but it hasn't.
"It's got worse. GPs are laughing about the new contracts because they've done very well while patients have not."
Health chiefs were forced to pay £2,240 for a doctor to work one weekend shift at an NHS clinic, it emerged yesterday.
The figure was revealed in a survey which suggests the NHS faces a £50million annual bill for patient care outside family doctors' working hours.
Oldham Primary Care Trust spent the sum hiring one locum agency medic to cover a 14-hour stretch over Easter Bank Holiday. NHS trusts have no choice but to fork out after the introduction of new GP contracts which allow doctors to take evenings and weekends off.
Locum agencies charge up to £225 an hour and individual doctors were pocketing as much as £1,000 for a shift. The cost of cover for GPs who opt out of working unsociable hours was last night condemned by public spending watchdogs and patient groups.
A spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance called it "the biggest financial bungle in the recent history of the NHS".
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