Hospital scraps £30k bonus plan to attract doctors

Furness General Hospital only has three permanent consultants in post

A £30,000 bonus to recruit consultants to an intensive care unit which is facing closure was considered and ultimately rejected, an NHS trust has said.

Earlier this year, Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) said it intended to close the level 3 unit at Furness General Hospital (FGH) in Barrow-in-Furness due to staff shortages and lack of demand.

Local Labour MP Michelle Scrogham previously said she did not believe the board had put "enough work" into finding staff for the unit.

Dr Helen Skinner, the chief medical officer for the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust (UHMBT), said the team tried "many ways" to recruit staff and failed.

Level 3 care, for those who need life support for multiple organ failure, is currently suspended at the hospital.

The sickest patients are currently being stabilised there before being transferred 46 miles (74km) away to Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

Although no decision has been made to close the unit, if the plan was taken on board, it would be permanent.

Michelle Scrogham, Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, raised questions about the proposals

FGH only has three permanent consultants in post against a national guidance requirement of eight, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Scrogham previously said she did not believe "enough work to actually find the staff" for the ward had taken place.

"I don't believe there was ever a plan," she said. "They didn't actually want to staff it at Barrow.

"I think the plan all along has been that they want to remove that service."

In response, Dr Skinner said Barrow faced multiple recruitment challenges, including the fact it was "far from major cities".

She said the team had tried multiple hiring strategies and had considered offering up to £30,000 per consultant as an incentive.

Staff had also attended national conferences promoting Barrow as a place to live and work, and the trust had advertised jobs.

Dr Skinner said the trust had even had to pay higher finder's fees to staffing agencies to fill its rotas.

Trust deputy chief executive Scott McLean clarified to the LDRS: "We have sought advice from partners on recruitment incentives to attract, however, after learning from other trusts and speaking to colleagues nationally, we discovered that it hasn't been successful in other areas.

"It was found that the incentive could destabilise other specialities within the hospital, so we therefore decided not to go forward with this idea."

Correction 17 October: The article originally said UHMBT offered a £30,000 bonus in an attempt to recruit consultants. This information was supplied to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) by the trust, which said this was one of a number of methods it had tried. However, at a public engagement event on 8 October, the trust said the financial incentive had been explored but it had decided not to go ahead with it. The BBC was not aware of this when the original article was published but has since been given updated information by the LDRS. The article and headline have been amended to reflect this.