Spending on temporary A&E staff down 8%

SPENDING on temporary doctors in A&E at Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust fell to £681,000 last year.

Exclusive figures have shown that more than a fifth of staff cover at the trust was provided by agency, bank and locum staff in two months in 2016.

There was an equivalent of 8.11 full time agency and locum doctors employed in A&E out of a full-time equivalent workforce of 36.44 – or 22% – in January 2016.

Hospital trusts across Merseyside spent £7.7m on agency, bank and locum doctors to cover shifts in A&Es in 2016, up 7% from the £14.3m spent in 2015, and up from £10.8m spent in 2014.

Wirral spent the most in the area at £2.7m in 2016, more than double the £1.3m it spent in 2015 and was the biggest increase across Merseyside. It was fol- ● Halton General Hospital, top, and Warrington Hospital lowed by St Helens and Knowsley, which spent £2.2m in 2016, up 25% from £1.8m in 2015.

Southport and Ormskirk saw an increase in spending of nearly two-thirds between 2015 and 2016, up 66% from £493,000 to £820,000, followed by a 40% increase at Aintree, from £713,000 to £996,000.

However, Alder Hey saw the amount spent on temporary staff drop 91% from £332,000 to £27,000, and there was a 32% drop at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen to £174,000 and a 8% drop at Warrington and Halton to £681,000.

The proportion of staffing covered by agency staff at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen jumped from around 2% at the start of 2016 to more than 10% by the end of the year.

Southport and Ormskirk has experienced an increased need to cover consultant shifts with agency staff, going from needing no cover in the first three months of 2016 to averaging 2.8 FTE roles in the final three months.

Across Britain, hospital trusts and health boards spent £231.7m on agency and locum doctors for A&Es in 2016, up 7% on 2015 when they spent £217m and up 22% from £190.7m spent in 2014.

The figures were released after a Freedom Of Information request to the trusts and health boards that run Britain’s hospitals. Of 157 with A&Es, six failed to answer the request.

NHS Improvement in England introduced price caps on agency staff in October 2015 to try to limit the amount hospitals were spending on agency staff.

The rules gave individual trusts set limits on the amount they could spend on agency staff in 2016-17, and also set price caps on the per-hour amount that can be paid for agency staff.