Health board spent over £6m on locums in nine months

NHS Shetland finance director Colin Marsland.

The health board is overspending on locums and agency staff by around £73,000 a week, its finance director has warned.

Colin Marsland told today’s (Tuesday) board meeting the total overspend for the year was expected to reach £3.8m.

He said that was also equivalent to the total forecast on pay and travel costs for agency and locums.

“Obviously that’s not sustainable in the longer term,” he said.

“To put that in qualitative terms we are overspending on agency and locum staff by £73,000 per week.”

Mr Marsland said the weekly figure was slightly more than it cost to employ a band seven employee for an entire year. 

Band seven roles include ward managers, emergency nurse practitioners and clinical psychologists. Their salaries start at around £41,000 but the overall cost to the NHS is nearer £70,000.

Mr Marsland said the board would have to lose 55 band seven employees – two-thirds of the total staff number on that banding – to cover the locum costs.

“It’s a very high number,” he added. 

The finance report stated actual expenditure on locum and agency staff in the nine months from April to December was £6.3m.

Consultants accounted for the biggest share at £2.1m, followed by nurses and GPs.

However the total cost was partly covered by savings made by staff vacancies, which was around £1.6m, as well as other sources of funding.