Agency staff at Calderdale Royal Hospital cost £13.5m over last three years, figures reveal

The figures have been revealed to the Halifax Courier under the Freedom of Information Act, and show that £13,639,993 was spent on agency staff by the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust at the hospital between 2022 and 2024.

The figure was £5,505,819 in 2022, £4,807,415 in 2023 and £3,326,759 in 2024.

Of the 7,151 people employed by the Trust, 295 are agency staff.

The department with the biggest spend on agency staff was emergency medicine, which spent £3,533,645 on them over the last three years.

Other departments that had big outlays on agency staff were respiratory medicine, with £1,664,377, stroke medicine with £1,790,682, acute medicine with £1,713,921 and general medicine with £1,751,839.

Suzanne Dunkley, Director of Workforce and Organisational Development at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, said: “To provide safe, high-quality care for our patients we need to have the right staffing levels across our sites at Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

"Over the last three years we have continued to reduce the amount that we spend on agency staff. We have recruited more staff to permanent roles, and we know that our Trust has a fantastic one culture of care which means that staff are choosing to stay with us for longer.”

Unison Yorkshire and Humberside regional manager Leonie Sharp said: “Staff working in the NHS are overworked and underpaid. It’s no wonder agency workers need to plug the many gaps that can't be filled.

“But the vast sums being spent would be better used giving NHS staff a proper pay rise. It's vital every effort is made to retain existing staff, as well as attracting new workers to fill the existing vacancies.”