More than £10 million a year is being spent on locum doctors at Shropshire’s two main hospitals, its chief executive has admitted.

Adam Cairns, the head of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, was speaking at a meeting of a health watchdog last night. He said the cost of hiring locum doctors was one of the key areas he was looking at in a bid to make savings of £20 million next year.

The chief executive said he was also concerned about the reliance on agency nursing and medical staff.

Mr Cairns highlighted the need to be “more efficient” as he presented an outline business case for a shake-up of hospital services in Shropshire.

Speaking at the meeting of the joint health overview and scrutiny committee of Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council, Mr Cairns said he wanted to employ more permanent staff rather than paying large premiums to fill gaps.

He said: “Next year is a big one and we are aiming to improve our cost position by £20 million. We have got quite a number of schemes we think we can deploy.

“At the moment we are spending a little over £10 million a year on locum doctors and that is too much. If we thought about it differently we can bring costs down.

“Also there are too many agency nurses and part of the change is to employ more of our own staff so we don’t have to call on agency nurses.”

He said the trust would be aiming to reduce its reliance on agency staff by creating a more effective bank system that was attractive for people to join as well as getting more staff in.

Mr Cairns also claimed that if the trust worked better with its partners it would be able to reduce the number of beds it needs currently by 200.

The chief executive said that if the changes were made it could lead to the trust actually making a surplus by the end of the 2012/13 financial year.

He said it would also improve the chances of achieving foundation trust status by December 2013.

By Russell Roberts