Health chiefs' bill for agency and bank nurses rises to £19m

Published on Tuesday 7 July 2009 10:09

SPENDING on bank and agency nurses rose by £1 million this year across the Lothians, new figures have shown.

The 19m spent by the health board is the highest in three years, and has seen the number of hours set aside for bank and agency health workers increase.

The bill is the result of an increased demand on a range of services, health chiefs said, adding that patient safety could not be compromised in the mission to drive down costs.

But patients' groups said the millions spent showed not enough full-time nurses were employed by NHS Lothian, while the nurses' union urged the health board to focus on recruitment.

Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients Association, said: "These figures are excessive and prove that not enough nurses are being employed. It's okay to fall back on agency and bank nurses in emergencies, but all the 19m figure proves is that we do not have enough nurses working full-time in our hospitals."

In October the Evening News revealed how nurses in certain wards at the Western General felt under strain because of health chiefs' reluctance to call on bank or agency workers in times of absence or staff holidays.

Judging by the latest official figures released this week by ISD Scotland this problem appears to have been addressed, at least at health board level.

And even though the amount of hours worked by the more expensive agency nurses rose by around 3000 to 85,000 last year, it is still a fraction of the 416,000 agency hours taken up in 2005, with more emphasis being put on bank staff – usually experienced nurses or midwives who want to stay involved but not work full time.

They worked 1.1 million hours in the area's hospitals last year – costing 16.7m.

The Royal College of Nursing's assistant officer in Scotland, Barbara Sweeney, said: "We have consistently called for nurse bank staff to be used, rather than paying private companies to cover for unplanned shortfalls in staffing.

"We would urge NHS Lothian to continue to put in place measures to recruit and invest in full-time staff wherever possible, to deliver the highest quality of care."

Pat Dawson, NHS Lothian's associate nurse director, said: "In recent years NHS Lothian has bucked the national trend by successfully reducing its spending on temporary nursing staff.

"We have done this by radically cutting our dependency on expensive agencies in favour of using nurses from our own bank.

"Last year, however, there was a slight increase in our need for agency staff due to national shortages in certain specialist areas such as theatres and anaesthetics and critical care.

"At the same time there has been an increasing demand for services, especially emergency admissions. This has led to us needing to have increasing numbers of beds available – all of which have to be staffed.

"While there is no halt in our efforts to increase efficiency and eliminate unnecessary spending the needs of patients must come first, so we will use agencies when there is no safe and satisfactory alternative."