Hospital pays £1,800 for an agency nurse to work a single shift (that's £163 an hour)
- Sum was paid to nurse for 11 hour shift at Maidstone Hospital, Kent
- Believed to be highest figure ever paid for a nursing shift in the NHS
- Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust spent £2.8m on agency nurses in 2013
An NHS hospital paid £1,800 for an agency nurse to work a single shift at its accident and emergency unit.
The huge amount was for 11 hours work – equivalent to a payment of just over £163 an hour.
The £1,800 total is thought to be the highest figure ever paid for a nursing shift in the NHS, although the gap between rates for NHS staffers and agency locums at every level has been widening in recent years.
An unidentified nurse was paid £1,800 for one shift at the Maidstone Hospital in Kent
The extraordinary shift payment was made for a nurse covering the bank holiday on August 26 last year at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in Kent.
One staff nurse at Maidstone Hospital, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Most of the nurses here struggle by on £25,000 a year or so.
‘That works out at about £90-£100 a day, so when you see someone coming in and doing the same job as you and getting paid what you take home in a month in just one day it makes you sick to the stomach.’
A Freedom of Information request found the Maidstone Trust paid out £4.7million to plug staff shortages between January and November last year, including £2.8million on agency nurses.
Other data suggests the total NHS bill for temporary nurses is set to reach £450million at the end of this financial year – a 21 per cent rise on 2011/12.
At least one other trust, the Mid Staffordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust, paid almost £1,800 for a specialist nurse to work 13.5 hours in accident & emergency in December 2011.
The Mid Staffordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust paid almost £1,800 for a specialist nurse to work 13.5 hours in accident & emergency in December 2011
NHS rates for staff filling a similar permanent post in A&E range between £25,528 and £34,189 a year.
In most cases nurses are provided by private agencies, which normally take commission of at least 20 per cent.
David Prior, the chair of the Care Quality Commission, admitted that there are some hospitals in England where you would not want to go as a patient
Such agencies usually pay hourly rates of between £25 and £40 to nursing staff, but have to find more to fill empty positions on bank holidays and meet unexpected surges in demand.
Agencies advertise their willingness to pay at least twice as much as full-timers receive for nurses doing shifts at short notice, and specialist skills attract higher rates.
Although Maidstone Hospital may have paid £1,800 to get the bank holiday shift covered, it does not mean that 80 per cent of the money automatically went to the nurse.
The Royal College of Nursing said it is up to an agency to decide how much it agrees to pay an individual for working a shift and this may vary according to demand from its customers.
There are now more than 60 private firms providing nursing and medical staff to the NHS. Doctors can earn vast sums for shifts, with one agency doctor at Mid Staffs getting £5,700 for a day’s work in 2010 and many consultants raking in around £3,200 for a single shift.
There are now more than 60 private firms providing nursing and medical staff to the NHS. Doctors can earn vast sums for shifts, with one agency doctor at Mid Staffs getting £5,700 for a day’s work in 2010 and many consultants raking in around £3,200 for a single shift.
Bosses at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said the amounts being paid were too high, but reflected the rate it had to pay to get workers to come in on public holidays. Other costs at the trust include 21 agency doctors paid in excess of £1,000 per shift during 2013.
A spokesman for the Maidstone Trust said agency workers were drafted in at critical times, such as peaks in A&E use over bank holidays and staff sickness.
A recent report by the Care Quality Commission found that the trust had high use of temporary staff in the past, but that it was improving.
The Trust spokesman said: ‘We thoroughly agree that agency charges are too high and that is why we are proactively addressing this issue and have been totally transparent with the Care Quality Commission.
‘Reducing agency use will involve international recruitment, and we need an adult debate about this while the training of more doctors and nurses nationally takes effect.’
NHS CARE POSTCODE LOTTERY
There are some hospitals in England where you would not want to go as a patient, the head of the organisation which inspects them said yesterday.
Care Quality Commission chairman David Prior said there was a postcode lottery in standards of care, adding: ‘The quality of care in one hospital can be very different from the quality of care in another.’
He said England probably had some of the best-led and best-run hospitals in the world, but added: ‘In those hospitals where you would not wish to go, you have a very poor damaged culture where employees feel they can’t raise concerns, where patients are not listened to.’
He said a number of hospital trusts had been identified as inadequate. ‘Barking, Havering and Redbridge is a good example,’ he told the BBC. ‘Heatherwood and Wexham Park would be another one.’
Mr Prior said many such hospitals were good in parts and added: ‘The critical thing that determines whether a hospital is good, bad or indifferent is the quality of leadership.’
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