A hospital in the Black Country has paid agency nurses almost £500,000 in a year, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

The Express and Star report:

A mental health trust treating patients from across the Black Country spent more than half a million pounds on agency nurses last year, it has been revealed.

The Black Country NHS Foundation Trust, which treats people with mental health issues in Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, used 270 qualified agency nurses between January 2012 and December 2012.

The trust spent £529,541 on qualified agency nurses over the last calendar year, a Freedom of Information Act request has revealed. The trust, which has a 2,000-strong staff payroll, employed the agency workers from a total of 18 different agencies in the region.

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I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.