Wales’s health board has revealed its use of healthcare recruitment agencies within its hospitals in June 2010. It claimed that they are spending up to £1m a month on replacement doctors as there is a continuous need to fill junior and middle grade doctors, although the shadow health minister Andrew RT Davies suggested this  is in reality a spend of up to £3m.

There are currently more than 300 locums in West Wales and although the trusts are trying to deal with the staffing issues internally, the location and size of the hospital can be difficult to entice permanent staff and so locums provide the best source of maintaining a service.

Dr David Samuel, chair of the Welsh junior doctors committee added that although many new doctors will be coming in to fill in training posts in the coming months it does not distract from the fact that many rotas are heavily dependant on locum doctors.

My view on this matter is of course there has to be control over spending with regards to locums but the reality of the situation is that it is easy to pick on the things that people can see. I for one would be much happier if the money was continually spent on frontline services rather than the amount of wastage that occurs in the bureaucracy of the NHS, within admin, procedures, SHA’s, PCT’s, accounts, etc, etc. I think the coalition government is tackling this and I am interested to see if there changes have the desired affect.