England's northeast hospital trusts spent almost £50m on agency staff
Hospital trusts in the northeast of England spent almost £50m on agency staff in the last financial year, according to figures obtained under Freedom of Information requests. The trusts all saw an increase in payments to locums over the last two years, despite the introduction of a government cap in November to curb overspending on temporary staff. Some of the trusts named in the documents responded by saying that agencies are generally only used as a last resort, but the need to maintain staffing levels during periods of demand meant that sometimes temporary staff recruitment is unavoidable.

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Hospital trusts in the North East spent nearly £50m on agency staff in the last financial year, despite an attempted crackdown.

The figures, revealed in Freedom of Information requests, found the region’s trusts had all seen an increase in payments to locum workers in the last two financial years.

It came after the Government introduced a cap in November last year to tackle the overspending on temporary staff.

The cap set a limit on hourly rates for agency doctors, nurses and other clinical and non-clinical staff.

However, the figures show five of the region’s trusts spent £44,788,383 on agency staff in 2014-15, which rose to £49,456,607 a year later.

NHS Improvement, the body which regulates trusts and foundation trusts, demanded hospital bosses get a grip of their staffing costs.

A NHS Improvement spokesman said: “It is vital that all hospitals tackle the issue of over-reliance on agency staff and work with us on how they approach the issue of agency staffing.

“This is why we introduced caps to reduce the amount of public money being paid to agencies - a key part of our plan to improve NHS finances.

“The measures have already had a real impact and we are starting to see a significant reduction in the amount being spent - so far more than £300m has been saved across the country.”

Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Royal Victoria Infirmary and Freeman Hospital, spent £7,101,240 on agency workers in the last financial year.

A spokesman for the trust said the service could not have been sustained without the staff but its recruitment policy aims to help reduce the use of agency staff.

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which is responsible for Cramlington, North Tyneside General and Hexham General hospitals, spent £5,497,000.

Ann Stringer, the trust’s executive director of human resources and organisational development, said: “Given the recruitment challenges facing the entire NHS and like many trusts across the country, there are occasions when we do need to use agency staff on a temporary basis to support our teams during periods of high demand.

“We run a very effective staff ‘bank’ system which gives our substantive employees the opportunity to register for some extra shifts and support the trust outside of their normal duties, should they wish to do so. This means our agency spend remains among the lowest in the whole country at less than 2% of our overall staffing costs.”

The figures pale in comparison to County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust who spent £27,447,155 on cover staff.

A spokesman for the trust said: “Pressures being experienced across the NHS mean that at times we have to rely on agency staff to ensure that we are providing quality, care for our patients.

“We are actively recruiting and have put in place other new measures which are having a considerable impact on our spending in this area, and we will continue these efforts.

“We are pleased that during the first quarter of 2016/17, we have seen a significant reduction of nearly 40% in agency and locum spending across all staff groups, which equates to £3.3m.”

While South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust spent £5,585,549 on temporary staff to cover medical posts.

Helen Patterson, the trust’s executive director of finance, said: “As a general principle, we only use agencies as a last resort.

“However, recruitment and retention of frontline medical and nursing staff is a challenge not only for our trust but for the NHS nationally.

“We have medical and nursing workforce groups that continually review the use of agency staff and we have also imposed stricter controls around the authorisation of the use of agency staff.”

Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, spent £3,825,663 on drafting in temporary staff.

Karen O’Brien, the trust’s deputy director of workforce, said: “Patient care is our primary consideration which makes it a key priority for us to maintain appropriate staffing levels.

“Agency workers and temporary staff are vital in helping us to manage variations in demand and capacity which arise for a number of reasons.

“Up until winter 2015/16, we were in the fortunate position to not require the use of agency nursing staff.

“However, the pressures of the winter period combined with a national shortage of nurses, prompted us to start using agency staff.”

The City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust was unable provide the amount it spent on agency staff in the last financial year.