Consultants’ pay 28% higher than UK peers

In the brilliantly organised, highly emotional campaign on nurses’ pay, inconvenient facts were not allowed to colour the narrative. Anyone who dared to point out that nurses are among the best paid in the world was dismissed as a stooge, even though league table after league table confirms that reality.

However, a new Department of Public Expenditure review suggests it may be unfair to focus on the nurses. Their consultant colleagues, at least as vociferous when demanding higher pay, earned 28% more than their UK peers and 36% more than those in New Zealand in 2017.