Virus costs Worthing hospital £250k a month

10:47am Tuesday 5th February 2008

An outbreak of a highly infectious virus forced a hospital to spend more than £1 million on temporary staff in just a month.

Worthing Hospital had to deal with dozens of cases of the norovirus, which causes sickness and diarrhoea, after patients and staff were struck down.

Many nurses and midwives had to take time off to recover and the hospital had to bring in expensive agency workers to provide cover.

At one stage five wards were closed to new admissions while the hospital's infection control team worked to contain the outbreak.

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust has been left with a bill of £1.12 million for the temporary staff used in December.

This was more than £250,000 higher than the £760,000 for November.

Trust director of finance David Dumigan told a trust board meeting: "December was a difficult month, in part because of the norovirus. This led to us breaching the £1 million mark and was the highest monthly figure we have experienced for a long time.

"The norovirus did not just affect patients, it affected staff as well, which meant there was an increased demand for temporary staff."

Temporary workers are employed for a range of reasons, including sickness, vacancies or holiday cover.

Mr Dumigan said the impact of the unexpected extra costs had left the trust facing an overspend of £95,000 at the end of the financial year.

Trusts are required by the Government to break even every year, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Mr Dumigan said work had already started on reducing the number of temporary staff without compromising the safety of patients.

Managers and staff in the hospital's departments were also looking at ways to improve efficiency and costs.

Trust chairman Tom Robson said: "We cannot end up with a deficit this year. We have been progressing well so far but now we are coming into the final few months and a problem has emerged. There can be no excuses."

The trust has an annual budget of more than £140 million. It was given £337,000 from the Government last year to help it tackle infections such as MRSA and clostridium difficile (C diff).

The money is being used on several projects, including a hospital cleaning system that uses special positively charged microfibres to attract dust.

The system has been demonstrated to reduce germs compared with conventional cleaning methods.

The trust has also been carrying out a deep clean of all its wards and stepping up its campaign to encourage all staff and visitors on wards to use the hand gels provided to stop the potential spread of infection.

The norovirus is not generally regarded as a hospital-acquired infection like MRSA but if a patient brings it in then it can quickly spread.

Wards where an outbreak has developed are closed to new admissions so cases can be restricted. Visitors who have had the norovirus are also asked not to come in unless they have been symptom-free for 48 hours.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Eastbourne District General Hospital and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards, had an outbreak of sickness and diarrhoea cases in January but the impact in terms of the cost on staff is not yet known.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, had to close wards towards the end of last year because of the norovirus but said it did not have any noticeable impact on its temporary staffing costs.

John Joseph, one of the managers at Choice Nursing Agency in Montague Place, Worthing, said: "Most nurses cannot work with agencies full-time because there isn't the work.

"They are usually employed by the NHS but also do shifts with agencies in their annual leave or on their days off to subsidise their income.

"Some agencies offer high pay rates but they are less likely to get contracts because they are not cost-effective."

Another nursing agency manager said his company offered about the same pay rates as the NHS to compete for contracts.