We’re not talking here about your Bentley-driving, Harley Street docs. These are the consultants who sort you out in A&E, remove your lumps and sometimes save your life. They earn a lot less than both Ed Sheeran and middle managers in, say, a tobacco or oil company, but when they’re sitting on the end of your hospital bed, you’d pay them anything they want. If they work more (which they have to because there aren’t enough of them) more has to go into their pensions; if this takes them over the ridiculously complicated contribution limits, they get whacked with a huge tax bill. And not many of us love our jobs enough to do them for free. Even Ed Sheeran.
