Sandwell Hospital aiming to cut agency spend by £10m
The trust which runs Sandwell Hospital is aiming to cut a massive £10 million from its agency staff bill by next April.
Hiring temporary staff has been a huge financial burden at Sandwell and City Hospitals.
The problem has been exacerbated by significant pressure on the A&E department over the winter and higher than expected sickness levels which has seen extra workers having to be drafted in.
Bosses have also struggled to fill nursing vacancies over the last year, forcing them to turn to temporary workers to keep wards staffed.
But bosses at the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust have been clear that the money being spent on agency staff cannot continue.
The trust spent £21.3 million on agency workers between April 2016 and February 2017 - £10 million more than the NHS limit.
It is hoped a recruitment drive which has begun to fill more than 200 nursing vacancies will ease the reliance on agency staff.
Health chiefs are also keen to tackle its problem with sickness absences and reduce the amount of hours that are owed to staff.
The trust has been tasked with meeting the £10 mullion reduction by the end of 2017/18 and was revealed in papers ahead of the June board meeting.
The report said: "The trust has adopted a four-pronged approach to achieve the key objective, which is to reduce temporary pay spend by £10 million by by March 31, 2018.
"These objectives will be broken down in to group level targets, and managed weekly at a group level."
The task of getting agency spend down could be made more difficult for the trust due to the delay on the opening of the £350 million Midland Metropolitan Hospital in Smethwick.
The super hospital is now on course to open in spring 2019 rather than October 2018, meaning both A&Es at Sandwell General and City Hospital will have to make it through another winter.
