A union boss has hit out at the ’greed’ of locum doctors at Noble’s Hospital who he claims are ’milking the system’.

Unite regional industrial organiser Eric Holmes blames the locums for problems in recruitment to the hospital and for cutbacks affecting frontline staff.

He made the comment as it was revealed in the House of Keys that there are more than 30 doctor posts at Noble’s Hospital that are currently unfilled.

The work is being covered mainly by locum and ’bank’ doctors.

Health bosses forecast Noble’s will go £10.2m to £11m over-budget by the end of the financial year - with 80% of the overspend relating to pay, largely due to the locum bill.

Mr Holmes said: ’Greed and systemic control and abuse is causing the inability to recruit to full-time positions in the hospital.

’The locum doctors have established a monopoly and as such they don’t want to tie-in as permanent staffing. They utilise locum and bank rates to milk the system.

’This means that staffing budgets are stretched and that means that the management of the situation will never stem the bleed until this abuse is stopped.

’The management structure look for easier pay reducing situations elsewhere which is mostly frontline service providers as their vocational nature means that the client rightly comes first and this is where the management look to draw back terms and conditions.’

He added: ’Sort the big bleed first and foremost before targeting the easier group.’

In the Keys, health department member Jason Moorhouse admitted concern at the time, sometimes up to six months, it takes to recruit permanent replacements for doctor vacancies at Noble’s.

Mr Moorhouse (Arbory, Castletown and Malew) was responding to a Keys question from Julie Edge (Onchan), who wanted to know the number of vacant doctor posts. He said there 34 positions vacant, as of at the end of November.

’These doctor vacancies are of varying grade and in a number of speciality areas across the hospital,’ he said.

’Twenty-four of the vacant posts are currently being covered by locum doctors, with the remaining vacancy balance being covered by bank doctors.’

He said the vacancies included 14 consultant positions, while six junior doctor vacancies were the result of a reduction in the number of doctors choosing to remain in continuing medical training, ’which resulted in the Isle of Man receiving a greatly diminished junior doctor allocation in August 2017, from Health Education England North West’.

He said it was a similar problem for many hospitals in the UK.

Mr Moorhouse insisted the vacant positions were regarded as frontline, so could not be left unfilled.

He said two consultant posts had been filled, with effect from January and March.

’Interviews are currently being scheduled for the vacant consultant surgeon posts in specialities of colorectal, breast and ENT,’ he added.

Shortlisting was about to start in three consultant radiologist posts, while the deadline for six consultant physician post applications had closed.

Mr Moorhouse added: ’The department is aware of vacancies in GP practices, but this does not form part of the department’s staffing complement.

’It is perhaps worth noting that, as part of the recent recruitment process, there was a significant number of strong applicants, a reflection of how positively Noble’s is viewed by potential employees.’

Tim Baker (Ayre and Michael) asked Mr Moorhouse if he believed the DHSC’s recruitment process was ’sufficient to actually address the issue’ and asked him to ’confirm that this is receiving a suitable degree of management and ministerial focus’.

Mr Moorhouse replied: ’Yes, that is a priority.

’One of our key concerns is the time actually taken to fill these posts. From them becoming available, to actually being completed, is taking six months in many cases, which is an issue.’