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Report of the General Board on private practice within the School of Clinical Medicine

The GENERAL BOARD beg leave to report to the University as follows:

1. The General Board have received a proposal from the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine for the revision of the regulations for certain University offices whose holders have clinical responsibilities in the National Health Service (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 529). At present no Professor, Reader, University Lecturer, Assistant Director of Research, Clinical Lecturer, or University Assistant Lecturer, who holds an honorary clinical contract in the National Health Service, or the Consultant Occupational Physician, is permitted to engage in private medical practice for personal reward. The officers listed may attend private patients but any payment for such attendance is credited to a fund or funds to be used for medical education or research administered according to arrangements approved by the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine. The Faculty Board now propose that the regulations be amended so that such officers may receive some payment from private practice. The General Board have agreed to support this proposal and to commend it to the University.

2. The issue of private practice for personal reward arises from continued concern within the Clinical School about the recruitment and retention of clinical academic staff. The Clinical School must compete for staff both with the NHS, which allows Consultants to retain up to 10 per cent of their gross salary in private income, and with other medical schools, many of which allow clinical academic staff to benefit from private work. The Independent Review of Higher Education, Pay and Conditions (the Bett Report) supported private practice for personal gain; it advocated the relaxation of restrictions throughout the HE medical schools where it was of the view that the benefits to recruitment and retention of clinical academics would outweigh the risks from appointing staff with less time to commit to teaching, research, and the NHS.

3. Under the proposed arrangements, officers wishing to undertake private medical practice will be permitted to spend not more than the equivalent of one NHS session (i.e. one half-day) during a normal working week seeing or treating private medical patients. These patients will be seen or treated only in the hospital at which the officer has an honorary NHS contract. However, if there were no satisfactory facilities for private patients within that hospital, an institution geographically convenient to the School could be used, subject to the prior approval of the Regius Professor of Physic. Outpatients will be seen only in one of the University Hospitals.

4. Officers will be able to elect to receive a proportion of the fees earned during the half-day session. This proportion will be calculated after the deduction of administrative and overhead costs incurred by the University.

5. All fees earned from private practice work will be administered through Cambridge University Technical Services Ltd (CUTS). CUTS will be responsible for invoicing the private patients and for making payments to the Consultants involved. Any surplus income remaining after the Consultants have been paid will be transferred by CUTS at appropriate intervals to Departmental accounts via the University. A management fee will be charged for these services. All private medical work, including work undertaken at weekends, will be managed through these arrangements.

6. The use of CUTS in this way will remove any corporation tax implications for the Clinical School and for the University.

7. The Heads of the Departments involved will monitor the proposed arrangements. It will be the responsibility of the Heads of Departments to ensure that the officers from within their Departments do not exceed the one-session limit and to make certain that the private work undertaken does not impair the performance of the officers' University duties nor conflict with the interests of the University.

8. If these arrangements are approved, the Faculty Board would wish them to apply to both the new grade of University Senior Lecturer and also unestablished staff with Honorary Consultant contracts, provided that the terms of the grant awards supporting such individuals did not preclude such activities.

9. The General Board recommend:

That the regulations for certain University offices whose holders have clinical responsibilities in the National Health Service be amended as follows:

Regulation 1.

By amending the regulation so as to read:

1. No Professor, Reader, Senior University Lecturer, University Lecturer, Assistant Director of Research, Clinical Lecturer, or University Assistant Lecturer, who holds an honorary clinical contract in the National Health Service, nor the Consultant Occupational Physician, shall engage in private medical practice for more than one NHS session (one half-day) each working week. All payments for private practice work shall be administered by the Cambridge University Technical Services Ltd. The officer concerned may elect to receive a fee for such private practice which will be calculated after the deduction of administrative and overhead costs. Income remaining after this fee has been paid shall be placed in a fund or funds to be used for medical education or research administered according to arrangements approved by the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine.

12 July 2000

ALEC N. BROERS, Vice-Chancellor
P. J. BAYLEY
KEITH GLOVER
MALCOLM GRANT
BRIAN F. G. JOHNSON
JOHN A. LEAKE
PETER LIPTON
N. J. MACKINTOSH
ADRIAN POOLE
KATE PRETTY
M. SCHOFIELD

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Cambridge University Reporter, 26 July 2000
Copyright © 2000 The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge.