SENIOR doctors in Northern Ireland have been awarded almost £30m in 'bonuses' over the past three years.
More than 500 consultants have received the Clinical Excellence Awards since 2012/13, figures obtained by the Irish News reveal.
The news comes just a week after the biggest nursing union in the north, the Royal College of Nursing, said it will ballot its 14,000 members for industrial action over a government failure to grant a one per cent pay rise.
Despite "suspending" the rewards scheme to new applicants following a public consultation, the Department of Health last night confirmed that £8.5m was paid out in bonuses to senior consultants for 2014/15, after £10.3m in 2013/14 and £10.9m the previous year.
Dr Tony Stevens, chief executive of the Northern health trust and former medical director of the Belfast trust, is among a group of elite medics recognised in the "higher" awards scheme.
He received £35,484 in addition to his six-figure salary each year since 2008.
The north's chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, who is also interim chief executive of the Belfast health trust, is another high-profile recipient - earning an extra £46,644 for the past seven years.
Last year trade unions reacted with fury when former DUP health minister Edwin Poots announced plans to re-introduce the scheme to newer consultants after it was axed during a public sector pay freeze.
The British Medical Association, the biggest doctors’ union, has repeatedly defended the pay-outs and insisted they are not bonuses but recognise the "outstanding contribution of doctors who go over and above what is expected to find new and innovate ways of improving the quality of patient care".
Set up in 2005 to recognise "exceptional contributions" by medics and dentists, they were previously known as the Distinction Awards, which were first set up in 1948.
Five years ago, the Stormont health committee called for the scheme's abolition, branding it “totally unjustifiable".
Fearghal McKinney, a SDLP representative on the committee, has called for greater scrutiny and transparency.
"When you consider these awards are ongoing against the backdrop of nurses and junior doctors threatening strike action over their pay and conditions, it raises a number of questions," he said.
"I am not against financial awards but I think they should be equitable and not just the preserve of a couple of hundred doctors. I also think they should be reviewed more often as opposed to the current five-year arrangement."
