Nursing agencies are taking advantage of a commercial opportunity

Stefan Cantore

Due to staff shortages the hospital paid more than �600,000 to outside agencies last year, and in some cases charges were double those in previous years.

Hospital chief executive Stefan Cantore said: "The agency nurse was very much a last resort, but we needed to keep the services going.

"Clearly we could not continue to pay �1,000 a shift for a nurse working in the A&E department.

"Nursing agencies are taking advantage of a commercial opportunity.

The nurse worked at Princess Royal Hospital

"We need to look to the long term. We need to retain experienced staff in the NHS."

However, the trade organisation the Federation of Independent Nursing Agencies (FINA) defended its industry.

It said the case at Hayward's Heath had been an unusual one.

Defence

Charles Walker, FINA's communication director, said: "The vast majority of agencies work very, very closely with their clients in the NHS and have excellent relationships.

If it was not for private agencies the NHS staffing crisis would probably be a great deal worse than it is now

Charles Walker

"This was a very short notice booking, that required some very quick work to be done to fill it."

Mr Walker said the real problem was the inability of the NHS to recruit and retain nurses.

He said: "If it was not for private agencies offering nurses a root to top up their rather meagre salaries, the NHS staffing crisis would probably be a great deal worse than it is now."

Shadow Health Secretary Dr Liam Fox said he would raise the issue of agency nurses in the House of Commons next week.

He said questions needed to be asked about why the Hayward's Heath hospital had not properly planned for a Bank Holiday weekend.

"In the wider case, we know that agency nurses are being used very widely in the NHS, and we need to be asking the question: 'is this amount of money that is pouring into the private agencies being appropriately used?'

"This is money that could be being used to improve the pay and conditions of those nurses in the NHS who were are losing at far too great a rate."

The Department of Health said the government was setting up a new in-house agency - NHS Professionals - which would end the need for NHS hospitals to rely on commercial agencies.