AT A time when money is tight, and health services are under increasing pressure, it is frustrating to hear that the NHS has spent millions just trying to plug the gaps.

It is one thing to hear that staffing levels are low, but it is even more galling when we are told temporary staff have cost Oxfordshire’s hospitals £31.9m in just 10 months.

Money that should be spent on providing the highest level of care possible for patients is instead being used just to make sure we have enough staff to stop a crisis.

And yet even with such an eye-watering amount spent, hospitals have still had to close beds and cancel operations.

Our doctors and nurses deserve better than this.

They tirelessly work long hours in a stressful environment and their job is not made any easier when agency staff have to be drafted in to work alongside them.

All involved must do more to make sure top-class staff are recruited who will serve patients in Oxfordshire.

Patients and taxpayers deserve better and it is up to our politicians and healthcare bosses to ensure this drain on the NHS budget does not continue.

Spending more than £100,000 a day on temporary staff in the county’s hospitals is not sustainable.