Spending on agency nursing is increasing (From Worcester News)

Spending on agency nursing is increasing

12:20pm Monday 6th February 2012 in Local By James Connell

Spending on agency nursing is increasing

SPENDING on high cost agency nurses and doctors to staff Worcestershire hospitals is rising despite mounting pressure on NHS finances.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spent £1.26 million on temporary staff to fill shifts in county hospitals in December last year alone (£765,000 on medical agency and locum costs and £413,000 on temporary nursing).

In total the trust, which manages Worcestershire Royal Hospital, has spent £8.86 million on temporary staff between April and December last year.

We have already reported in your Worcester News how the trust is taking out a £15 million Government loan in 2012/13 to help pay its bills.

The trust, which only finishes paying off a £25 million loan in March, needs the new loan for the trust balance sheet because of historic debts.

Figures show rising costs over the winter as extra staff had to be brought in to care for people in additional beds.

The largest wedge of cash used to pay nursing bank and agency staff in December was to cover unfilled vacancies (£183,000), the next largest segment was to do with extra activity (£132,000) and the third biggest reason was staff sickness (£104,000).

At the moment there are between 150 and 200 staff vacancies across the trust, of which 45 have been nurse vacancies advertised over the last three months.

The time to hire for the trust is about 11 to 12 weeks (the average period of notice is eight weeks).

Bev Edgar, interim director of human resources, said work was under way to bring the time to hire period down so it was closer to the duration of the notice period.

Depending on demand, the trust can either pay its own staff to work extra shifts (bank staff) or pay an agency to cover shifts which is more expensive.

In December more than half of shifts (53 per cent) were filled by agency staff.

The proportion of agency nurses filling shifts therefore rose for the first time this financial year above the proportion of its own nursing bank staff who filled less than half of all shifts (47 per cent).

At the start of the year (April) only 21 per cent of temporary nursing shifts were filled by agency staff while the majority (71 per cent) were filled by bank staff.

Chris Tidman, director of finance, said at a meeting of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust that health bosses always tried to use bank staff rather than agency which involve “high costs at premium rate”.

He said: “The big concern is that we’re spending threequarters- of-a-million on medical locum and agency staff (December figure).

“A lot of that is down to the fact we can’t fill the middle grade rotas.”

He wrote in his report: “The proportion of agency staff has been increasing with a particularly large rise in December, showing that it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill shifts with bank staff.”

! No other members of the media were present at the meeting.