THE trust which runs Fairfield Hospital has vowed to reduce its dependence on agency staff, after the Government revealed plans to target ‘rip-off’ agencies.

New measures will see a maximum hourly rate set for temporary staff and a cap on the amount struggling NHS foundation trusts can spend.

Figures obtained through a freedom of information request by the Bury Times showed that Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spent more than £4 million in the last financial year to hire agency staff at Fairfield.

The figures, which cover April 2014 to March this year, showed that £3,215,008 was spent on temporary medical staff and £1,078,081 on agency nurses.

More than £100,000 was spent on estates, clerical and ancillary staff and allied health professions, while a report published for last month’s trust board meeting counted agency spend among areas that have “missed targets for some time”.

Hugh Mullen, director of operations at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “We are the largest NHS trust in Greater Manchester running four local hospitals and we employ around 9,000 staff serving a population of 820,000. Our priority is to ensure safe and high quality services continue to be delivered at all times.

“Like other NHS trusts across the country we are experiencing a shortage of doctors and nurses in permanent posts, and this is particularly the case in our busy accident and emergency (A&E) departments where we see a third of a million patients every year. The demand on services is increasing.

"We want to reduce reliance on agency staff in the longer term and in efforts to strengthen our workforce we have recently started campaigns to recruit more permanent nursing staff and doctors to join our trust, including staff working in A&E.”

Last week, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the cost of agency staff across the NHS in England last year was £3.3bn and that an agency doctor had on one occasion been paid £3,700 for a 30-hour shift, while one nurse was paid £2,200 for a 12-hour shift.

Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said they do not hold data on hourly rates or the number of shifts filled by agency staff.

Mr Mullen added: “The trust has successfully recruited 38 A&E nurses in the last few weeks. We now employ five primary care GPs who work in our A&Es, and earlier in the year successfully recruited seven new trauma and orthopaedic surgeons across our hospitals.

“In total, we have recruited 37 new consultants, registrars and speciality doctors since January 1, 2015, all of which will go some way to reducing the trust’s agency spend. Permanent doctors and nursing staff are not only cheaper but, more importantly, is better for patient care.”