A WIRRAL MP is making a plea to local hospitals to provide "more certainty" for nurses and patients after he found the NHS in Merseyside spent £67m on agency and contract staff last year.

A parliamentary question revealed that Wirral Community NHS Trust spent £3m, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust spent £831,000, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust spent £1.9m and Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust spent £4.5m.

Temporary workers are used by the NHS to cover particularly busy periods or to fill in for staff on maternity leave, and are generally a more costly way of employing people.

Birkenhead MP Frank Field said: “Local people know their NHS is desperately short of money, and staffing levels are critical.

“Hospitals are having to plug the gaps by paying sky-high amounts for temporary workers.

“I am really worried about the impact of this on patient care, for two reasons; the high turnover of staff in hospital wards can create uncertainty, both for nurses and patients, and the huge sum of money required to hire temps is adding yet more salt into the gaping wounds in the NHS budget.’

He added: ‘We need the political parties to make a bold statement to voters by pledging to save the NHS as we know it.

"That's why I've proposed ambitious reforms to our National Insurance system so as to stave off financial meltdown, and to use the extra monies from this to drive through a series of reforms so the NHS is able to meet patients' needs.”

Heather Bebbington, associate director of human resources and organisational development at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, said: "As a Trust we are committed to providing safe and effective care to the people we serve.

"To ensure we achieve this we sometimes use agency or locum staff for an interim period until a permanent person is recruited, especially in clinical areas where vacant posts could impact on the service we provide to our patients.

"Patient care is our number one priority and to achieve this we must always ensure we deliver safe staffing levels.

"We continually review our internal processes to ensure recruitment delivers value for money for the Trust."

Wirral Community NHS Trust said: "Wherever possible Wirral Community NHS Trust employs staff on permanent contracts and is committed to recruiting a highly skilled and professional workforce.

"We need to be able to respond to the changing health needs of Wirral and neighbouring communities, including changing demand and short term service contracts.

"The use of temporary staff gives specific services greater flexibility where it is needed.

"Two thirds of our expenditure on temporary staffing in 2013/14 was on sessional contracts for medical staff in our Out of Hours and Urgent Care Services.

"This is an appropriate way to staff this service and the service was recently subject to a very positive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection."

A spokesman for Wirral University Teaching Hospital Trust said: "We aim to keep the use of temporary staff to a minimum. Like all acute hospital trusts, our

services continue to see a significant increase in the number of patients we treat, many of

which are sicker and require more complex and timely healthcare needs.

"To meet this growing requirement, this Trust does call on the skills and availability of

temporary staff as and when the need arises.”

Tim Welch, deputy chief executive and director of finance at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP), said: "CWP is committed to providing safe and effective care to the people of Cheshire and Wirral.

"We only call on the skills and availability of temporary staff where absolutely necessary to meet fluctuations in the demands placed on our services.

"Through a process of strict financial management and service redesign, CWP has managed to limit the amount spent on temporary staffing, concentrating on investing in our existing staff to deliver high quality care to our patients.”