GWH said to have paid over £2,500 for a single agency nurse shift

Swindon Labour Party Great finds that the Great Western NHS Trust has paid for the most expensive agency shift in the country - which cost 2,549.

In total, Labour Party research found the NHS paid more than £3 billion nationally to agencies who provide doctors and nurses on short notice.

The figure is said to represent a 20% rise on last year, when the health service spent £2.4 billion. Trusts were said to have spent a further £6 billion on bank staff, when NHS staff are paid to do temporary shifts, taking the total spent on additional staff to around £9.2 billion.

The Labour Party added that one in three NHS trusts paid an agency more than £1,000 for a single shift last year, while one in every six trusts paid more than £2,000, results from freedom of information requests reveal.

The most expensive shift was £2,549, paid by Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Swindon. Medway NHS Trust in Kent spent more than any other trust on agency staff, paying out £77 million last year alone.

A spokesperson from Swindon Labour added: "The NHS currently has a record 47,000 nursing vacancies, with 132,000 vacancies in total. Despite being short of more than 10,000 doctors, the Conservative government this summer cut medical school places by 30%, meaning more students who want to help are being turned away."

Labour says its plan to train a new generation of NHS staff will:

• Double the number of medical school places
• Create 10,000 new nursing and midwifery placements each year
• Double the number of district nurses qualifying each year
• Provide 5,000 new health visitors

The party says the plans will be paid for by abolishing non-dom tax status, which allows residents of the UK to avoid paying taxes here. 

Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for South Swindon, Heidi Alexander said: “Having visited the Great Western Hospital recently, I know how hard everyone is working and how much pressure the hospital is under. It’s not staff’s fault or management’s fault that we’re in this situation. Responsibility lies squarely with Government.

"Over the last 12 years, the Conservatives simply haven’t trained the nurses and medical staff we need. Our local MP, Robert Buckland voted to axe bursaries for student nurses six years ago and our hospital is now having to fork out huge sums of money to get agency workers in.

"Government need to get a grip of the agencies that are making a killing out of this crisis and they need to adopt Labour’s fully costed and funded proposals to train the staff the NHS needs.”

Wes Streeting MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Taxpayers are picking up the bill for the Conservatives’ failure to train enough doctors and nurses over the past 12 years. This is infuriating amounts of money paid to agencies, when patients are waiting longer than ever for treatment.

“Labour will tackle this problem at its root. We will train the doctors and nurses the NHS needs, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status. Our NHS needs doctors and nurses more than the wealthiest need a tax break.”