EXPENSIVE agency staff have plunged Great Western Hospital back into debt. Only last month bosses announced that a £1.6 million overspend chalked up over the 2004/05 financial year had been wiped clean.

But figures for April show a total overspend of almost £800,000.

Bosses at the flagship hospital blame temporary workers who are more expensive to employ.

Agency workers are paid more and the Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust also has to pay agency fees.

As the Evening Advertiser has previously reported, some temporary medical staff are paid three or four times more than their permanent colleagues. A total of 206 shifts were covered by outside workers in April alone, according to papers presented to board members. This has landed the hospital with a bill totalling £71,246.

Last summer, chief executive of Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust, Lyn Hill-Tout, ordered departments to snub these agencies.

Instead, they were asked to use the hospital's 900-strong "nursing bank" a pool of both part and full-time staff to cover shifts.

Yesterday, Paul Bentley, director of human resources, admitted that this has not happened explaining it was a case of "needs must".

He said: "We are concerned but our priority has always been patient care.

"In order to provide the appropriate level of care we need adequate staffing that has cost us."

Mr Bentley said the staff bank is still the first port of call for department managers but stressed that it cannot always be relied upon.

The hospital also 'lost' £401,000 because staff saw few patients from neighbouring Primary Care Trusts.

Under government rules, hospitals receive extra cash if they help relieve pressure on other hospitals. GWH was expected to treat 68 patients from Bath but staff only saw six.

Mr Bentley said: "If we don't see a certain number of these patients we don't get paid.

"These figures concern us but the most important factor here is patient care.

"That will always win hands-down as far as we are concerned at the hospital.

"We are only in month one of the financial year and we will turn things around as we did at the end of the last year."

Meanwhile, efforts are on-going to recruit more staff to the nursing bank.

In the past year the trust the body responsible for running the hospital has taken on 200 extra permanent employees. It now employs about 3,500 people.

Cancer pledge

CANCER patients are to receive even quicker treatment.

From this month, all patients who are given an urgent GP referral must receive treatment within 62 days. Once a specialist decides on the course of treatment hospitals will have 31 days to book patients in.

Paul Bentley, director of human resources at Great Western Hospital, said staff will be working flat-out to meet the tough targets.

"It is really important to see suspected cancer patients as soon as possible," he said.

"The Department of Health has declared that cancer standards will take a high priority in the performance monitoring of trusts from April 2005.

"And there will be a real push at GWH to achieve these targets. We have to do all we can to beat it."

Since 1998 all patients suspected of having cancer must be seen by a specialist within 14 days.

Kevin Shoesmith