Ministers are looking into allegations that young physicians on strike have been working at more lucrative hospitals in other locations, which has increased their salaries.
Evidence shows that junior doctors have walked out of their scheduled hospital shifts while carrying out higher-paying ones elsewhere.
Senior NHS sources have told The Mail on Sunday that they ‘despair’ of bringing the dispute to a conclusion while doctors are able to ‘line their pockets’ on strike days.
One said: ‘Some of them just hop in the car and drive to another hospital trust where they earn more than they lose by striking.’
Posting on the website Reddit, one doctor said: ‘I’ve noticed that a few people are picking up locum shifts during strike days at another hospital.’
While it is legal for NHS employees who are on strike to work for another trust, they are not permitted to do the tasks performed by striking employees.
The British Medical Association (BMA) urged junior physicians to use locum work on industrial action days to make up the pay they would have lost by going on strike.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: ‘There are rules about what locum work can and cannot be carried out during industrial action and they must be adhered to.
‘Hospitals are under huge pressure from these strikes during one of the busiest times of the year for the NHS, and if there is rule-breaking on locum work during the strikes that is clearly wrong.’
The spokesman added: ‘It’s time the BMA junior doctors committee calls off the strike and comes back to the negotiating table.’
No matter how much money is thrown at it, the NHS remains a huge financial sinkhole until someone dares to alter the way it runs. The whole country knows this, but the government won’t do anything to change things.
The NHS has been pushed into the ground by the Tories because they want patients to go private.
I’ve definitely lost faith in the NHS because of these physicians, who only seem to be motivated by money.
Any Junior doctor who is working should be instantly dismissed because you can’t strike about pay and then go and pick work up as a contractor at another hospital.
Many junior doctors who finish their training go to another country and earn even more money. They should be contracted for at least five years so that they can’t leave the country for a better-paying job.
Junior physicians who are discovered to be working while on strike should be fired right away since they are not only endangering lives but also defrauding public coffers.
They seem to think that the public is behind them, but some are not. They’re still learning and they were aware of the pay scale when they began their training.
They should quit and look for another job if they’re not content with the salary because they picked that line of work, but like most of society now, it’s me, me, me.
It’s the way they seem thrilled to be on strike that gets me, happy happy faces. Hypocrites, deliberately cause harm to the patients they trained to help.
‘Moonlighting’ is the term for this. Many individuals engage in it to make ends meet, but they aren’t on strike, are they?
They train for a job knowing full well what the job will pay, and then they whine about it. Total madness.
This new perception of a once-respected profession is provided to us by doctors who are picketing. These students are a new wave of economically gullible youth, and if any of them ever manage the NHS, things will go south far faster. Nevertheless, these same individuals are carrying meaningless signs and are only being guided by a union with political agendas.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 