Agency staff cost Dudley's Russells Hall Hospital £600k in a month

The bill for December came as the number of patients attending A&E during the month soared to 8,762, compared with 7,944 in the previous year.

Chief executive Paula Clark today said the hospital was working to reduce the number of agency workers it used to cover staff shortages.

She added that it had spent, on average, around £61,000 less each month on agency staff than in the previous financial year.

The total spent during December was £603,240, a Freedom of Information request revealed.

Of this £265,704 was spent on medical staff and £264,206 on nursing staff. While £39,133 was spent on other clinical workers and £34,197 on non-clinical staff.

Ms Clark said: "To make sure patients are safe and cared for by appropriately skilled staff at all times, we sometimes use agency staff to cover staff shortages.

"These shortages can come about due to unplanned sickness and short-term vacancies, or the need to open extra beds to cope with peaks in demand. We are pleased that, despite an increased number of A&E attendances, we were still able to reduce the amount we spent on agency staffing."

The agency staff bill has come under fire from former hospital governor Bill Etheridge, who said employing agency doctors and nurses was an ineffective use of resources at a time when the NHS is facing unprecedented demands.

"The people in charge are on a large amount of money. It would be nice to think they had the skills as would lead to not having to call in the cavalry," he said

"Nobody would say the NHS is booming with money at the minute but when you have got people earning top dollar and they can't plan around increases in demand then that has to be questioned. It is simply not acceptable. This is not about me bashing the NHS. It is dealing with unprecedented increases."

Mr Etheridge was a governor at the hospital between 2010 and 2013 before resigning over car parking costs.