AN NHS nurse in Rotherham has broken the £100,000 pay barrier – by working overtime.
The nurse consultant doubled her basic salary of £50,000 by working overtime under an NHS initiative to bring down waiting lists.
The member of staff, who earned between £100,000 and £105,000 in the last financial year, is a "nurse consultant", on
e of the top grades of the profession employed by Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.
Nationally, 800 nurse consultants are employed and their roles can range from running clinic sessions advising patients on how to manage conditions such as diabetes to performing minor surgery or remove cysts and moles. They also carry out research.
A newsletter published by the Rotherham trust last year said it had four nurses on this grade.
One nurse consultant Julie D'Silva, who carries our internal examinations inside the stomach, spoke about her contribution to cutting down the waiting list.
She said: "We have to put in a great deal of effort to deliver the best service we can to the people of Rotherham.
"However we don't want to stop there and we hope that in time we will manage to get waiting times down even more."
Rotherham trust said neither it nor Ms D'Silva would confirm whether she was the nurse who had earned in excess of £100,000.
A spokesman said: "The trust is very clear that these payments represent good value for money with real and tangible benefits to patients."
NHS nurses have an average annual income, including overtime, of £31,600 while the average consultant salary is £119,200.
But it's believed dozens of NHS nurses nationwide are now earning £60,000 a year and hospital doctors' incomes have also rocketed with many NHS consultants earning more than £200,000.
There are no set national overtime rates, they are negotiated between trusts and their nurses and doctors and are not publicly revealed.
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