The Student Room Group
Within the UK? It's likely to depend, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere near the rates their US counterparts make. This may well change with the new plans to subcontract NHS services among private firms, if that manages to get off the ground :s

It doesn't really matter though, as you'll be making more than enough money at the rate of an NHS consultant pay to live very comfortably, regardless of whether you work privately or in the NHS.

The astronomical rates the US private doctors (especially surgeons) make really just means the difference between "nice house, car, clothes etc" and "several nice houses, cars, and so on" which is kind of irrelevant ultimately as you can only reside in one house at a time and drive one car at a time...

This is beside the point that the oft cited salaries are considerably lower in real terms due to the very high cost of malpractice insurance etc in the US - and the overhead costs in the US of running ones own practice increasing quite a lot these days (and the private health companies that exist there, in the same vein as BUPA or virginhealtcare, tend to pay a lot less than figures would suggest from what I hear).
Original post by rainbowcat1437
Like private consultants...in NHS they earn like £100,000 at the maximum I think, but how much do private ones earn?


It depends on so many factors...specialty, subspecialty interest(s), amount of experience, location, demand, covering your other costs (indemnity, staff, premises etc).

This is a (now rather old) paper on the subject:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442143/

Specifically:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442143/table/tbl3/
Reply 3
I think top, private consultants can earn well over £100k but it takes a while to get there
Some information from over 10 years ago:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442143/table/tbl3/

So, adjust for inflation I guess lol.
The idea of a purely "private" consultant is actually very rare in the UK. The NHS dominates, with the private sector only skimming the cream off the top really by taking simple, easy to do cases. The second things get complicated the NHS takes over. As such, its much more common for consultants to work in both the NHS and private on the side.

But that can still be very lucrative, as above.
And also you mustn't forget that if you want to do private work then you will need to pay your own insurance. For some sectors it could as much as 20k-30k per year so you better see a lot of patients to make up for that! And of course you will need to spend your evenings and weekends on it, and your patients will have your mobile number, which they will of course use when you are doing the barbecue with your kids on Sunday lunchtime.

Bear in mind also that some NHS trusts have contracts whereby you need to work more for the NHS before you can do private. So for example if a standard contract is for 40 hours, they might want you to work 44 hours if you want to do private as well. That is also the case in Ireland (though in Ireland it is mandated by the government whereas in the UK it depends on the trust for which you work).

Very few people do private work only because it is hard to keep up to date and do all the things you need to do if you don't work in the NHS, unless you work for a large private firm but in that case you become more of an employee and earnings are greatly reduced because the firm needs to pay for its overheads.
(edited 6 years ago)

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