Hospitals reduce use of stand-in temp staff
HALTON and Warrington hospitals’ spending on temporary staff has fallen according to a new board report.
The latest figures show the amount of cash spent on stand-in roles fell to £1.2m during May from £1.4m in April.
More than half of that sum, £704,000, paid for temporary and agency nurses, down from £734,000 in April.
Medical locum spending dropped from £502,000 to £346,000.
Other agency worker costs fell by £23,000 from £159,000 to £136,000.
A Freedom Of Information request has also revealed that the trust spent £739,233 on agency staff for its accident and emergency department during 2015, down from £720,371 in 2014.
Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH) has cut its temporary and noncontract staff spending as it battles a £19.9m annual deficit and tries to improve its financial sustainability risk rating of ‘1’ – the worst available on the scale.
Its plan is to slash costs overall in 2016-17 by £10.1m.
In May the Weekly News reported that WHH’s excess staff costs had been running at £900,000 a month in 2015-16.
According to the trust’s latest board report, the hospital also experience a drop in sickness absence from 4.5% to 3.7%.
It said the main reason for non-attendance was stress, which accounted for 24% of days missed.
The report said a study had taken place to establish whether the underlying causes were workrelated, finding that 92% of cases were not.
It added that recruitment has speeded up to the ‘ambitious’ target of 37 days and the vacancy rate has dropped to 6.3% where it currently remains stable.