Agency nurse spend last year triples to £4.5m
SPENDING on agency nurses nearly tripled last year to £4.5m.
Published
They made up nearly a fifth of the hospital nursing staff in 2015.
Amid pledges to cut back on the use of agency staff – whose wage package is nearly double that of permanent employees – Health and Social Services board member Heidi Soulsby said it had no option but to employ the equivalent of 92 full-time nurses last year to ensure patient safety was not compromised.
In 2014, the figure was 33.
The new board took control of the department in October 2014.
It was an inherited situation, said Deputy Soulsby, who is also chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
