Locum doctors are being paid large sums to work in A&E units as hospitals continue to struggle with “endemic” staff shortages.
An investigation by The Telegraph has found that on 2,300 occasions last year, locum doctors were paid more than £1,000 to make up staff numbers.
This includes incidents of locum consultants being paid in excess of £3,000 per shift, while some nurses were paid up to £1,600 to plug the gaps in rotas.
The highest single amount paid to a locum doctor was £3,717. This was spent by Wye Valley NHS Trust for one 30-hour shift, which included time spent on call and time spent sleeping.
Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust paid heavily for nursing shortages, paying one locum nurse £1,620 for a 12-hour shift.
The investigation concluded that the total bill for NHS agency workers in 2013 reached nearly £250 million. This is the equivalent to the annual wages of 3,000 consultants or more than 7,000 junior doctors.
The figures oppose statements made by senior managers, who have previously insisted that such rates are only paid in crisis situations. In reality, it seems that NHS Trusts are routinely paying in excess of £1,000 per shift.
“Endemic” staff shortages
Many of the hospitals say there are struggling because of a national shortage of consultants. This is supported by the College of Emergency Medicine, which suggests there is a shortage of nearly 400 consultants in Britain. This has occurred because not enough A&E doctors are trained, while hundreds have emigrated abroad.
Dr Cliff Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said: “The use of agency doctors has become endemic in the NHS. There are units which would implode if they weren’t relying on them, day in, day out.
He added: “The figures are shocking and ludicrous. The worst of it is that with the money we are wasting on temporary staff we could double the number of A&E consultants, if only a more long-term approach was taken. It doesn’t make economic sense, nor does it make clinical sense – because this is not good for patients.”
Substandard A&E care
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