MORE than £100,000 a day is being spent on temporary staff in Oxfordshire hospitals as the county’s health recruitment crisis deepened.

Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUHT) spent £31.9m on agency workers and bank staff between April 2014 and January 2015, a rise of 21 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.

The huge bill contributed to a £14m overspend on planned expenditure by the trust, which runs John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford as well as the Horton General in Banbury.

It blamed the “lack of affordable housing” on recruitment, as well as the “high cost of living” and a shortage of qualified staff.

Spokesman Oliver Evans said: “The trust is actively trying to recruit permanent staff but this is proving difficult because of Oxfordshire’s high cost of living and a national shortage of nurses.”

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“Where this is not possible the trust uses staff from agencies on a temporary basis to maintain services.”

Staff shortages have meant the hospital trust had to close an average of 24 beds a day in January for patients in surgery, haematology and trauma wards.

Mr Evans said this was due to problems recruiting specialist staff.

The closure of beds contributed to 389 cancelled non-elective operations that month.

Scoliosis patient Patricia Ludlow had seven operations cancelled over two years at the John Radcliffe Hospital, including an operation in October last year that was cancelled five minutes beforehand due to lack of available beds.

The 58-year-old said: “Honestly I love the NHS but I don’t think there’s a justification for how I was managed.

“It’s been very frustrating and incredibly upsetting.”

The Stanford in the Vale resident has now been transferred to the care of the Central Middlesex Hospital for specialist treatment.

Speaking on the use of agency workers, the retired healthcare assistant said: “They need to sort out staffing levels in the NHS and staff are not appreciated enough.

“They need to be paid more.”

This was echoed by Labour MP for Oxford East Andrew Smith, who said: “Given the very high cost of living locally, I think matters are also being made worse by the government’s policy in holding down nurse’s pay, which has the consequence that the trust spends even more on agency staff.

“I know the trust has been trying a variety of ways to tackle the problem.

“These efforts need to be redoubled, including recruiting and training people who already live locally and attracting back into nursing qualified people who have left.”

Mr Evans said: “Measures to encourage staff to work at the trust include flexible working, trust accommodation and on-site childcare.

“These also include ongoing overseas recruitment, nurse graduate open days and attending careers fairs to promote apprenticeship schemes for 16 to 18-year-olds.”

Healthwatch Oxfordshire CEO Rachel Coney said: “OUHT’s ongoing difficulties in recruiting staff are a matter of very serious concern, and undoubtedly are a contributory factor to some of the long-term problems they face, like bed-blocking.”

But the health watchdog said underlying issues such as housing prices were out of its control and others needed to to action to help solve the crisis.

Oxford City Council leader Bob Price said the authority was working with institutions such as OUHT to improve the current situation.