Regulator puts caps on agency nurse spending in Shropshire

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal hospitals, has been told by the regulator it must keep its spending on agency nurses to below eight per cent of its annual nursing budget for the rest of the financial year.

A spokesman said: "We are reviewing new guidance issued this week and will be developing our nurse agency staffing profile for submission to the NHS Trust Development Authority later this month."

Last year, the trust spent £3 million on agency staff. It has pledged to bring down its spending and in April had recruited more than 80 nurses from abroad.

Caps on agency spending have been imposed by Monitor – the sector regulator for health services in England – and apply to spending on registered nurses.

There are eight bandings, with hospital trusts being placed in a band depending on their historical spending on agency nursing staff. The Robert Jones and Agnes HuntOrthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, at Oswestry, must keep its spending on agency nurses below £345,000 a year – three per cent of its £11.5 million annual budget for Registered Nurses. RJAH is in Band A – the lowest.

Wendy Farrington-Chadd, chief executive of the RJAH Trust, said: "The trust continues to focus on ensuring vacancies are recruited proactively. We also make active use of a pool of bank staff to cover vacant shifts, while our sickness rates are regularly amongst the lowest in the region. These factors combine to ensure we do not have an over-reliance on agency staff."

Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, said it too had been given restrictions on its spending. A spokesman said: "

We have been notified about the new spending rules published by the NHS Trust Development Authority and Monitor, and we are now in the process of working out what that means for us."

South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust, the local provider of mental health and learning disabilities services, has been set a cap of three per cent a year. Kenny Laing, deputy director of nursing, said its agency spend was a "cost pressure" but " we are proactively reducing this by running our own internal nurse bank."