The number of hospital staff who are receiving private healthcare treatment paid for by the NHS has prompted accusations that the health service is paying for its staff to queue-jump and raised questions about its ability to provide adequate treatment.

Freedom of information requests sent out to all NHS trusts and hospitals in England reveal that over the past three years 3,337 employees were treated, at a cost to biwa pearl the taxpayer of £1,578,607. The figures – obtained by the Liberal Democrats – show the practice is becoming increasingly common.

In 2006-07, 708 staff received private treatment at a cost of £279,335. The following year, 988 staff received private treatment at a cost of £470,859. Last year, the number jumped to 1,641 staff at a cost of £828,413.

“If the NHS thinks it necessary to pay for private treatment for its staff to jump waiting lists, then it raises serious questions about whether the current system is working as it should,” said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman.

Orthopaedic consultations, chiropody and aromatherapy were among the private treatments received. But those most used were physiotherapy and mental health services, notably cognitive behaviour therapy, private counselling and psychiatric consultations.

“I’m not surprised that so many trusts have to akoya pearl contract in private companies to provide for physiotherapy, counselling and therapy as they are often woefully under-resourced,” Lamb said. “The sad reality of our health service today is that, if you suffer from an illness not covered by a government target, then you will still often have to wait months for the care you need.”

The Department of Health said that any decision on whether or not to fund private healthcare was taken at a local level by each authority and trust. “There is evidence that early intervention in tackling sickness absence enables staff to return to work more quickly,” said a spokeswoman.

Lamb said: “These figures will be little comfort for pearl jewelry those people stuck on waiting lists trying to get access to treatment.” The Department of Health commissioned a report last year into the use of private health treatments as a cost-effective way of maintaining a productive workforce. The final version of the review, led by Dr Steve Boorman, an expert in occupational health, will be delivered next month.

“Evidence from the Department of Health shows that many people with acute musculoskeletal problems recover more quickly when they are given rapid access to effective physiotherapy, enabling them to return to or continue in work while they recover their health,” said Phil Gray, chief executive of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

“The fact that some NHS staff are receiving private physiotherapy treatment could be explained by the need to reduce the time that frontline staff are off sick and away from their duties. However, it may also indicate a shortage in provision and lengthy waiting lists for physiotherapy.”

A major study has found that “despite public opinion to the contrary” there is little evidence that having a working mother during infancy harms a child’s mental development or adversely affects its behaviour.

Researchers looked at the lives of 17,000 Britons and their children, who were born mainly in the 1990s. Using tests and questionnaires to track development and behaviour, they found that those whose mothers had returned to work in the months before their first birthday did not appear to be disadvantaged.

The results show that the pearl jewelry public debate about motherhood is too skewed towards the issue of whether women worked or not, according to academics. Heather Joshi, co-author of the study and a professor at the Institute of Education in London, said that other factors, such as a stable home environment, had a much bigger impact on child development.

She said the latest results showed how far society had come. “There was evidence in some cases of a small negative impact [of women returning to work] in earlier decades – particularly for those born to working mothers in the 1970s and 1980s,” she explained.

“But when we looked at this other batch of children, mostly born in the 1990s, we found that this smallish wrinkle in a very complicated pattern was not visible.”

Joshi, who is director of the institute’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies, argued that improvements in childcare arrangements, changing attitudes in society, more flexibility at work and the increased involvement of fathers in their children’s lives had all contributed to the shift. She admitted that the findings went against public opinion.

Research published last month by the biwa pearl Institute of Child Health found that when children from similar types of families were compared, those with working mothers had slightly less healthy lifestyles than those without. It revealed that the children were more likely to be driven to school, ate a lower amount of fruit and vegetables and watched television for longer periods.

“But as the authors of that study say, this doesn’t mean that the way to stop children being obese is to stop mothers going out to work,” said Joshi. “It means that you need to pay better attention to the exercise that children are getting in the care facilities and at home.”

Parents and campaigners welcomed the latest findings. Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of the parenting website Netmums, said the findings would be embraced by “every working mother in the country”, particularly because of the size of the study.

She argued that many women had no choice but to work and said their attitude was often “we are doing our best”.

Freegard said the debate should accept that women have to work and focus instead on the need for appropriate childcare provision. “We do have concerns about industrial-type nurseries with a large turnover of staff. But if you have gran looking after them, or a wonderful nursery, then there is no reason to assume there will be a negative impact,” she added.

On Netmums, working mothers talked about their decisions to return to work. Abbie Hill, 26, said she had no choice but to start work again when her daughter, Lily, was three months old because the family needed money.

“It was a matter of putting food on the table and clothes on her back,” said Hill, who works in recruitment. “Her social skills are excellent because she has mixed with other children from a young age. She has just turned two and can count to 10. She dances, plays musical instruments, cooks, draws and participates in a number of activities.”

Katherine Rake, the new chief executive of the akoya pearl Family and Parenting Institute, said that working motherhood was a “reality” and the time had come to shift the debate to how to encourage and support women.

She described Joshi’s study, which is published in the Journal of Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, as “solid evidence challenging a long-term media debate that has too often demonised working mothers”.