Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE £100 , 000 NURSES
Ulster trust pays out vast sum for agency workers at understaffed hospitals
HEALTH chiefs are shelling out £100,000 a year for just one nurse thanks to chronic staff shortages.
Vast sums are being spent in hospitals on agency employees costing three to four times the usual wage.
The Nothern Trust admitted: “That is a position that we simply cannot afford.”
Its head Dr Tony Stevens made the shocking revelation during a meeting with SDLP Assembly members Patsy Mcglone and John Dallat.
A NORTHERN Ireland health trust is being charged up to £100,000 a year for some of its agency nurses to address acute shortages of permanent staff.
The Mirror has learned the cost of an uncontracted agency nurse here can be four times more than a staff member.
In some cases the money paid is costing more than a consultant’s salary.
The Northern Trust is being forced to fork out large sums due to a chronic shortage of trained nurses.
The situation was described by an MLA as “privatisation by the back door”. Trust head, Dr Tony Stevens, disclosed the pay during a meeting with SDLP MLAS Patsy Mcglone and John Dallat.
Dr Stevens told the politicians a band five agency nurse can cost up to £100,000 a year – up to four times that of a staff nurse of similar grade. The average annual wage of a staff band five nurse is £21,000 to £28,000.
He also said that in some cases agency nurses are costing more than staff consultants, who are paid between £76,000 and £102,500 a year. In addition, an agency consultant can cost the trust up to £300,000 a year.
The Northern Trust blamed a failure to recruit enough nurses and doctors for the problem and warned it is a situation it cannot afford.
In a statement to the Mirror it said: “There are regional and national nursing shortages, and we are actively trying to recruit permanent nursing staff locally, nationally and internationally.
“Failure to recruit the numbers of nurses and doctors we need means having to resort to increasing use of high-cost non-contract agency staff which can be three to four times the cost of equivalent trust-employed staff.” Mr Mcglone said action was urgently needed to curtail the spiralling costs. He added: “We have a situation which seems to be privatisation through the back door.
“We must stop this by training nurses and medical staff and paying them properly to reflect the role they play.” It is understood it could take up to five years to train enough nurses to meet demand.
All health trusts have been ordered to cut £70million from the budget and using less agency staff is one of a number of proposals to help deliver the savings.