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Rocketing costs for temporary Health & Social Care staff, which topped £11m last year, don’t include the costs of providing accommodation, it has emerged.
A Scrutiny hearing with senior health politicians and bosses today also heard that additional accommodation has had to be provided for these workers, such as hotels.
Officials were unable to say how much extra this costs the taxpayer on top of the wage bill, but these should be provided to the Scrutiny panel in due course.
The President of the Committee for Health and Social Care, Deputy Al Brouard, said it currently costs between two to three time more to hire agency over permanent staff. But analysis into whether paying permanent staff more would result in a saving, as an alternative to the use of agency staff, has not been undertaken.
Health’s Director of Operations, Dermot Mullin, said a weekly challenge process occurs to see if alternatives could be found to agency staff for vacancies which need to be filled.
Pictured: The Scrutiny hearing occurred this morning.
Deputy Brouard explained that increasing numbers of hospital beds, new wards, new operating theatres, extended opening times and managing covid have and will demand additional staff members.
When asked by Scrutiny Vice President, Deputy Simon Fairclough what is being done to cut agency staff costs, Deputy Brouard said the issue had been left on the Committee's desk following the election, and agency dependency is unlikely to decrease in the short term.
“Staffing was one of our major issues, and the major answer we had from the professionals was that we needed to provide more key worker accommodation,” he said.
“That was absolutely key, and I sit here another two and a half year later, and I haven’t even got a spade in the ground… if we want to tackle this issue, we need to provide accommodation for our permanent staff.
“We have always used agency, but it is because we can’t find other staff – we don’t grow enough of our own even with the 14 staff who go through the Institute each year - a third of the staff of the hospital have been through the Institute, it's still not enough for the demands that we have.
“Agency staff rates have rocketed as well because we’re all fishing in the same pond. Us and the NHS trusts are all in that same position. If you want to unlock this particular locked door or gordian knot, give us staff accommodation - certainly for some of our staff as near as or on the PEH campus, and I need it yesterday.
“And we need it to be quality. We’ve got people staying in hotels, that’s not right. Are they going to want to stay here forever with those sorts of facilities? That just does not cut it.”
Pictured: P&R are hoping to build key worker accommodation on the grounds of the hospital.
Scrutiny President Deputy Yvonne Burford asked: “Have you done any analysis on the cost benefits of increasing pay to hopefully attract more workers who could perhaps then more easily afford the private rental sector… in the hope of reducing the significant premiums you are having to pay using so many agency staff?”
Deputy Brouard suggested pay is just one part of the puzzle which may not necessarily solve the whole issue, and that he would only have a fighting chance with additional key worker accommodation.
Michelle Le Clerc, on the Scrutiny panel, said a rent allowance represents an uplift in pay for off-island staff, which is not what local staff receive, and therefore may disgruntle local employees.
Deputy Brouard accepted that a proportion of staff must live within the private market, to which Deputy Burford said “if people are paid more, then they are in a better position to likely afford to live in the private sector, that has to go without saying.
“That will chase out somebody else who is living there now who then won’t be able to afford it,” replied Deputy Brouard.
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