Western Trust spends £27m on locum and agency staff

A Northern Ireland health trust is spending more than £2m per month on locum and agency staff.

The Western Trust spent £27m on temporary doctors, health professionals, nurses and admin staff during the 2017/18 financial year.

SDLP health spokesperson Mark H Durkan described the bill as "frightening" and "called for long-term solutions to the dependence on temporary staff."

The trust said it recognised the costs were "not sustainable".

And while it strived to reduce such expenditure, it would not do so at the "expense of compromising safety", a spokesman added.

The spend is contained within the trust's most recent annual report.

In 2017/18 the Western Trust spent £17m on temporary medical staff, with a further £10m being spent on other agency staff including nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, admin and clerical staff.

The trust's bill for locum doctors in the previous financial year was also £17m.

'Failure'

Mr Durkan said there would be an inevitable "impact on patient care".

"If this amount of money is being spent on locum and agency staff, it is clearly not being spent elsewhere," he told BBC News NI.

He said the spend reflected a "failure of workforce planning over a number of years".

Mr Durkan said a medical school at Ulster University's Magee campus could help keep doctors in the area

The Londonderry assembly member said that uncertainty around Brexit may add to the challenge of recruiting permanent staff and unsettle existing employees who live across the border.

"People earn where they learn and the medical school in Derry would be a real game changer," he added.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone assembly Rosemary Barton said: "I'm repeatedly told a lack of finances is the key contributory factor to the current waiting times yet the trust can still find all this cash to pay huge sums for locum staff. "

In 2016, the trust launched a recruitment drive targeting medical professionals from abroad in a bid to address staff shortages.

In its 2017/18 annual report, the trust stated its international recruitment programme had retained 35 doctors with a majority being placed in the South West Acute Hospital.

The report also says an additional 15 medical professionals are "proceeding through the international recruitment processes."

The Department of Health has revealed £156m was spent across Northern Ireland's five health trusts and ambulance service last year on temporary and agency staff.

Spending on locum dentists and doctors accounted for nearly half of the total spend - £73m.

The Belfast Trust, Northern Ireland's largest, had a total temporary staff spend of £49m last year, while at the Northern Trust spending topped £35m.

The South Eastern and Southern Trust spent £22m and £23m respectively, while employing temporary staff cost the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service nearly £872,000.