Agency doctor costs soar at Conquest
The cost of employing doctors from outside agencies at the Conquest hospital has soared by 500 per cent over the last three years.
Hospital bosses spent almost 2 million on agency doctors between April 2008 and April last year.
The costs were revealed in a letter obtained by Hastings Conservative parliamentary candidate Amber Rudd, under a Freedom of Information request.
The hospital trust spent 1,964,943 in 2008/9 on agency doctors compared to 846,960 in 2007/8 and 379,133 in 2006/7.
Spending on non-medical agency staff has also risen by more than 90 per cent during the same period, from 717,327 in 2006/7, 970,768 in 2007/8 to 1,313,764 in 2008/9.
Mrs Rudd said: "The amount is simply staggering and both the financial and practical implications of an over reliance on agency doctors is already having a negative impact on the provision of services."
She said she had spoken with other doctors who said they blamed most of the staffing problems on the woeful training and placement of junior doctors and the trouble caused by the Government's new Working Time Directive.
Mrs Rudd said: "Although nobody wants to return to the days of 100-hour weeks,what they miss is the flexibility for certain departments to work longer than the prescribed 48 hours.
"The urology department is now only able to cater for in-patients due to the lack of permanent registrar level doctors. Anyone who needs to stay overnight has to be transferred to Eastbourne.
"I have written to trust chairman Irene Dibben to request an explanation and discuss ways in which the Conquest's staffing problems can be resolved."
A spokesman for the Conquest said: "Our priority is to provide safe quality services for patients, which requires appropriate medical cover. In order to do this, there are occasions when we have to employ doctors from an agency.
"There are a number of factors that have contributed in the increased use and cost of agency doctors, such as changes in European working directives, the national shortage of doctors in some specialties, changes in immigration laws and increases in agency charges."
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