Walsall Manor Hospital facing £20m bill for temporary staff
Walsall Manor Hospital faces spending up to £20 million on temporary staffing in just 12 months, it has emerged.
Bosses at the hospital trust have been faced with rising demand from patients which saw it reach capacity around Christmas.
Figures have showed that up to December there had been almost £15m used on bank, agency and locum workers since April.
However, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which manages the hospital, is braced to spend around £19.9m on temporary workers based on the trend continuing.
It comes as the overall amount spent each month reduced by more than £400,000 from November to December.
Figures for January are yet to be released.
A report to the board from head of finance Ian Baines said: "Total temporary staffing spend to December stands at £14.917m. At this rate of spend this would equate to £19.889m by the end of the year.
"Temporary costs reduced by £415,000 in December. The costs associated with nursing reflect the high levels of agency usage to service additional capacity, and falls prevention.
"Plans have been developed to reduce expenditure and recruit permanently to the nursing establishment."
The trust has recruited an extra 100 nurses in the last six months in a bid to reduce the need to use agency, bank or locums.
The trust's director or nursing has also drawn up £4m plans to boost to bring in more than 80 nurses and 35 care support workers on some wards.
This would reduce the amount spent on temporary staff. The move is being further investigated by bosses who are considering the funding.
It emerged earlier this week that the hospital trust is facing a financial blackhole of almost £13m this year due to increased costs and demand.
The hospital was forced to declare a major incident at the beginning of January because of the pressure and more bed space needed to be created.
It led to almost 100 extra patients a week.
Figures have also showed that emergency admissions have rocketed by more than a quarter in the last two years with the trust also struggling to hit its A&E targets.
The national standard is for 95 per cent of accident and emergency patients to be seen within four hours.
But this was as low as 67 per cent at the start of the year, although it rose to 82.3 per cent at the week ending January 25.
