NHS hospitals are paying their own doctors up to £6,000 a shift to cover striking colleagues, who have been accused of “ripping off” the health service.
Health chiefs have said they have little choice but to pay “over the odds” to keep patients safe, and several hospitals are paying more than £3,000 a shift.
Ministers fear that taxpayers are, in effect, subsidising the strikes through paying doctors exorbitant overtime rates to tackle disruption and delays caused by their own industrial action.
Joint action by junior doctors and consultants this week is expected to cause unprecedented disruption as services are reduced to Christmas Day levels again. Ministers see no end in sight to protracted industrial action as high overtime pay means that doctors lack the usual
