Doctors in Cumbria covering shifts were paid £8m in the last year a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

In Cumbria report:

North Cumbria’s troubled hospitals trust has come under heavy criticism for spending nearly £8 million on locum doctors in the last year, paying one of them £158 an hour.

The high level of spending on temporary medics was unavoidable, the trust said today.

But critics have blamed it on the lingering uncertainty which hangs over the cash-strapped trust which runs both the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven.

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