Hospitals are paying up to £3,200 a shift to hire locum doctors in A & E . Short-staffed trusts are forced to pay exorbitant amounts as they compete to attract agency medics . Full-time doctors say it is ‘ demoralising ’ working alongside locums earning three or four times as much . United Lincolnshire Hospitals , which runs Lincoln County Hospital , pictured , paid £3,258 for a consultant to work a 24-hour shift in A & E between Christmas and New Year . Figures obtained by Sky News show that United Lincolnshire Hospitals paid £3,258 for a consultant to work a 24-hour shift in A & E between Christmas and New Year . Not all the money went to the doctor as the agency employing them will have taken a sizeable cut . Nonetheless , it is still a considerable amount bearing in mind the locum will have spent much of the shift asleep but ‘ on-call ’ – where they need to attend only in an emergency . Leeds Teaching Hospitals in West Yorkshire paid £2,099 for a doctor to work a nine-hour shift in A & E over the same period – equivalent to £230 an hour . Three more trusts – the Royal Berkshire in Reading , Derby Hospitals and North Bristol – each paid around £1,800 for an A & E nurse to work 12 hours . The figures , obtained under the Freedom of Information Act , show that at one trust , Airedale in West Yorkshire , more than 70 per cent of all doctors ’ shifts between Christmas and New Year were filled by locums . As they are generally less experienced and competent than full-time doctors employed by the trust , there is concern that such over-reliance could put patients at risk . The Royal Berkshire in Reading , pictured , Derby Hospitals and North Bristol each paid around £1,800 for an A & E nurse to work 12 hours . At the Heart of England NHS trust , 58 per cent of shifts between Christmas and New Year were filled by locums , while at the Royal Bolton it was 52 per cent . The NHS is short of A & E doctors partly because staffing levels have not kept pace with the rising number of patients , so trusts have to pay vast amounts to agencies . Dr Clifford Mann , president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine , said : ‘ Market forces really are quite extreme currently , with the lack of permanent people to employ . ‘ It means hospitals are desperate to try to find people to fill these slots and are having to pay super premium rates . It can be very demoralising to be working alongside somebody with much less experience , much more junior , who is earning a multiple income compared to you. ’ Last month a scathing report by the Public Accounts Committee warned that doctors and nurses were quitting to become locums because the pay rates were three or four times higher . It also highlighted how spending on agency staff had soared by a quarter in the past year to £2.6billion . Dr Mark Porter , chairman of the British Medical Association ’ s council , which represents doctors , said : ‘ Locums play a vital role in the NHS but they should not be used as a long-term solution . Greater reliance on locums is a sign of stress on the system and the result of poor workforce planning by government. ’ The Department of Health said : ‘ Since May 2010 we have more than 9,500 extra doctors and nearly 8,500 extra nurses . We want to reduce reliance on agency staff and soon hospitals that don ’ t have their finances in order will have to make significant progress towards halving their agency spend or risk tough consequences . ’
Short-staffed NHS trusts pay more than 70 for locum doctors . United Lincolnshire Hospitals paid £3,258 for a 24-hour shift in A & E . The Royal Berkshire trust paid around £1,800 for an A & E nurse .