NHS spending £1m on A&E consultant suspended for over six years

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The NHS has spent more than £1 million on an A&E consultant after keeping him suspended for more than six years.Dr Richard MacCallum – cleared in 2020 of sexual impropriety with patients – languished at home on full pay while colleagues at NHS Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert were overrun by Covid.He remains off as the current NHS crisis ravages A&E departments.While MacCallum collects more than £115,000 a year for basic salary, some locum A&E consultants get up to £1500 a day.MacCallum has been suspended so long he has completed an honours degree in law.NHS Forth Valley said he will remain suspended until the end of its own internal investigations.

These are meant to take 32 weeks, however the probe has now continued for more than 300 weeks.One friend of the doctor, who lives in Dollar, ­Clackmannanshire, said: “It’s pretty insane.Did you know you can keep up to date with the latest news by signing up to our daily newsletter?We send a morning and lunchtime newsletter covering the latest headlines every day.We also send coronavirus updates at 5pm on weekdays, and a round up of the week's must-read stories on Sunday afternoons.Signing up is simple, easy and free.You can pop your email address into the sign up box above, hit Subscribe and we'll do the rest.Alternatively, you can sign up and check out the rest of our newsletters here.“When the story broke about Richard he was painted as some kind of sexual predator but he was exonerated by the General Medical Council.

Every day we hear about an intensifying crisis in the NHS.“NHS Forth Valley has made noises about having higher standards than the GMC but it seems that he is being punished without being found guilty.”Another source added: “He has been desperate to get