Facing up to financial hardship

The financial situation that NHS colleagues find themselves in is extremely worrying and is adding to our struggle to recruit and retain staff. Much has been written about the impact of high tax bills faced by the higher earners in the NHS; Campbell (2019), writing in The Observer, cited findings from the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association that due to the impact of pension taxes, more than a third (34%) of doctors have cut their hours, and 39% have turned down or given up medical leadership roles in the NHS because of their pension concerns. Worryingly, around half of those who had taken either course of action said that no other doctor had stepped in to take over their work. In the same piece, the British Medical Association warned of the effect that this is having, leaving ‘doctors trapped in a dilemma between wanting to care for patients and not wanting to end up worse off ’ (Campbell, 2019).