Hospital bosses in Harrogate have said a £9 million spend on agency staff this year was “necessary”.
Earlier this week, the Stray Ferret reported that the hospital had spent £4.1 million more than its target spend for agencies this year.
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust set a target to spend no more than £473,000 each month on agencies — the equivalent of a maximum of £5.7 million over the year.
The figure covers staffing in areas such as nursing, dental and clinical support staff.
In response to the spend, a spokesperson for the trust said:
“When we experience workforce challenges in our clinical and non-clinical services we will use our bank of nursing staff or the services of relevant recruitment agencies to support staff gaps where necessary. This is an issue faced by all NHS foundation trusts across the country.
“The workforce challenges can be for a variety of reasons, such as when we have vacancies due to colleagues leaving the Trust or being promoted, or staff illness.
“It is important that we maintain a safe level of staff to care for our patients, and this can fluctuate due to circumstance – for instance, over the winter months we generally see a rise in patients with respiratory infections, such as the flu or covid-19, and an increase in the number of patients who cannot be discharged. This will lead to the trust opening more beds to meet demand, which in turn requires additional medical and nursing staff to care for those patients. In such instances, we may need to call on agencies, which can be expensive, but enables our services to continue.
“Whilst the current spend on agency staff across our services is higher than we expected, this has been necessary to ensure we can continue to provide the safest and best possible levels of health care service for our community.”
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It comes as Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds North West and the party’s shadow environment minister, described Harrogate hospital’s reliance on agencies as “a disgrace”.
He told the House of Commons in February that a constituent called Marjorie Dunn spent just over seven weeks at the hospital last year.
Mr Sobel said:
Harrogate hospital trust spends £9m on agency staff“In that time she saw NHS nurses leave the service and she was treated predominantly by agency staff — mistreated, I have to say, by agency staff. It is a disgrace.
“When she was eventually moved to a recovery hub run by Leeds City Council she got excellent treatment there.
“She had broken her pelvis and been told she would never walk again, but it was the council physiotherapist who got her up and walking again. Is it not right that we should be supporting local authorities such as Labour-run Leeds to get such facilities as well as the NHS?”
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has spent £9 million on agency staff costs this year.
The figure covers staffing in areas such as nursing, dental and clinical support staff.
The trust set a target to spend no more than £473,000 each month on agencies — the equivalent of a maximum of £5.7 million over the year.
However, according to board papers, the trust has spent £9.8 million on agency staff – £4.1 million more than its target spend for the year.
In January alone, the hospital spent more than £1 million on agency staff.
HDFT agency staff spending per month. Table: HDFT.
It comes as Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds North West and the party’s shadow environment minister, described Harrogate hospital’s reliance on agencies as “a disgrace”.
He told the House of Commons last month that a constituent called Marjorie Dunn spent just over seven weeks at the hospital last year.
Mr Sobel said:
“In that time she saw NHS nurses leave the service and she was treated predominantly by agency staff — mistreated, I have to say, by agency staff. It is a disgrace.
“When she was eventually moved to a recovery hub run by Leeds City Council she got excellent treatment there.
“She had broken her pelvis and been told she would never walk again, but it was the council physiotherapist who got her up and walking again. Is it not right that we should be supporting local authorities such as Labour-run Leeds to get such facilities as well as the NHS?”
The Stray Ferret has approached Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust for comment.
A spokesperson said previously:
“We pride ourselves on providing the best possible standards of care for our patients, wherever that care may be being delivered. On the rare occasions when this has fallen below our expectations or those of our patients, we have procedures in place to identify this and ensure we continuously improve.
“Workforce challenges in the NHS are well documented. As a trust, we monitor recruitment, retention, turnover and staff wellbeing closely and have a bank of the trust’s own nursing staff, who are available to support where we have short- term absence. These staff are familiar with Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust and our standards of care.
“On occasion, we do need to use the services of agencies to support nursing gaps, however we expect all staff working at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust to provide the same standards of care for our patients, and we will address this if it is found not to be the case.”
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Shadow minister brands Harrogate hospital’s reliance on agency staff ‘a disgrace’
Shadow minister Alex Sobel has claimed Harrogate District Hospital‘s use of agency staff is a “disgrace” that is harming patient care.
Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds North West and the party’s shadow environment minister, told a Commons debate on the NHS this week a constituent called Marjorie Dunn spent just over seven weeks at the hospital last year.
He added:
“In that time she saw NHS nurses leave the service and she was treated predominantly by agency staff — mistreated, I have to say, by agency staff. It is a disgrace.
“When she was eventually moved to a recovery hub run by Leeds City Council she got excellent treatment there.
“She had broken her pelvis and been told she would never walk again, but it was the council physiotherapist who got her up and walking again. Is it not right that we should be supporting local authorities such as Labour-run Leeds to get such facilities as well as the NHS?”
Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health minister, said Mr Sobel was “absolutely right about the impact of the churn of staff on a ward”, adding:
“It can be quite distressing for patients to see the faces and names change every day and to constantly be explaining once again what their experience in the hospital has been, if indeed the staff have time to stop and talk.”
The Stray Ferret asked Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative MP Andrew Jones if he wished to respond to Mr Sobel’s comments but he did not respond.
‘Workforce challenges’
Asked to respond to Mr Sobel’s comments, a Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said:
“We pride ourselves on providing the best possible standards of care for our patients, wherever that care may be being delivered. On the rare occasions when this has fallen below our expectations or those of our patients, we have procedures in place to identify this and ensure we continuously improve.
“Workforce challenges in the NHS are well documented. As a trust, we monitor recruitment, retention, turnover and staff wellbeing closely and have a bank of the trust’s own nursing staff, who are available to support where we have short- term absence. These staff are familiar with Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust and our standards of care.
“On occasion, we do need to use the services of agencies to support nursing gaps, however we expect all staff working at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust to provide the same standards of care for our patients, and we will address this if it is found not to be the case.
“Maintaining the health and safety of those people in our care is our main priority and we would like to apologise to anyone who has found that their experience has been below what they would expect. In addition, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust work collaboratively across health and social care to ensure that care and services are delivered to our population in the right place, by the right professionals, which means there are occasions where this is a multi-agency approach to ensure the care be delivered as close to the person’s own home as possible.”
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