Hospital trust's £1m overspend on agency staff

A Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust board meeting was held on Thursday

A hospital trust spent almost £4m on agency staff in three months to cope with staff sickness and shortages, overspending by nearly £1m.

The board of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs King’s Mill Hospital, Mansfield Community Hospital and Newark Hospital, discussed the issue during a meeting on Thursday.

The spending on agency staff between April and June this year amounted to £3.9m, surpassing an original goal of £3.1m, and amounting to 4.7% of the trust's overall pay bill.

NHS England’s current target recommends only 3.2% of NHS trusts’ pay bills should go to agency workers.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said a report delivered to the board cited staff sickness and vacancies, along with efforts to reduce patient backlogs, as key reasons behind the increased spending, with strike action also a factor.

Rob Simcox, director of people, said: “We saw some dependency in agency as we recovered post that period of action.

"During the last quarter significant work has commenced that aligns to our... ambition to reduce our reliance on agency usage and financial recovery challenge.

"We are currently advertising a significant level of medical consultant posts and are confident this will directly impact on the levels of agency usage."

Additional reporting by Chris Doidge.

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