BETSI Cadwaladr Health Board is underspending on staff pay, despite major concerns over the cost of relying on agency staff, a financial report has claimed.

A budget paper due to go before a full meeting of the health board said that, while the board has underspent by around £1.6m on staff pay, that is because of problems in recruiting permanent staff. There has been an overspend on the amount of money spent on employing agency staff by the board.

Russell Favager, the health board’s finance director, said the board is facing a range of problems in recruiting staff similar to other health boards in Wales.

He said: “Overall payroll expenditure is showing an underspend of £1.6m reflecting significant slippage in recruitment to substantive posts mainly in the area teams which partly mitigates the effect of high agency usage.

“Recruitment challenges are being experienced across the health board, particularly within nursing and medical where the higher cost options of locum and agency staff are being used. However the trend in pay costs is increasing.

“Agency costs remain a key area of overspend compared to substantive budgeted posts and total agency costs for December were £3.8m.

“Medical agency costs in December were £2.6m which is 68 per cent of the agency expenditure. This is above the year-to-date average of £2.5m and the 2015/16 average of £2.4m. This reflects significant pressures arising from recruitment difficulties.”

Mr Favager said that an increasing reliance on agency nursing staff to cover vacancies had seen an increase in costs.

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