This is a follow-up to my original message (bearing in mind the subsequent
comments from Larry Brownstein, John Whittington and Ruth Balogh: thanks
to you all).

A Google search using search terms:
  "ipswich hospital" agency staff
generated a number of hits, mostly not relevant, but one of them was
a PDF summarising Freedom of Information requests made to the hospital
in April 2016. Amongst these requests (the last in the list) is the
one quoted below, which would seem to be the source of the information
reported by the newspaper (identical numbers "10,933 shifts"
and "£11,421k = £11,421,000 spent").

The FOI requests for 2016 are listed in PDFs by month (January-May) at:
  http://www.ipswichhospital.nhs.uk/foi/foi-requests-received.htm
and the one below is copied from the April list. I have looked at
the May list, and there is nothing relevant.

I include the entirety of this FOI request since the other points may
be of interest. Note, however, that none of this information from the
hospital adds anything to the questions about costs arising from the
newspaper report! So there we are ...

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

==========[Start of FOI item]==========
Reference Number: 3482
Date Received: 13/04/16
Applicant: Private Person
Information Requested and Response [Hospital reponse lines start with **]:

This is a Freedom of Information request regarding the amount of money spent
on nursing shifts from outside agencies.
1. How many nursing shifts (for nurses of any grade) have you needed to cover
  with agency staff from 31st March 2015, to 31st March 2016?
**10933 Shifts booked
2. How much did you spend in total on agency staff between 31st March 2015
  and 31st March 2016?
**The total agency spend from 1st April 2015 -- 31st March 2016 was
**£11,421k, this includes expenditure on community services
3. Did you use Medacs Healthcare plc to provide temporary nursing cover from
  31st March 2015 to 31st March 2016, and if so how much did you pay them in
  total?
**Not used
4. Did you use Mayday Healthcare plc to provide temporary nursing cover from
  31st March 2015 to 31st March 2016, and if so how much did you pay them in
  total?
**Not used
5. Did you use Imperial Medical Staffing to provide temporary nursing cover
  from 31st March 2015 to 31st March 2016, and if so how much did you pay
  them in total?
**Not used
6. Did you use Thornbury Nursing Services to provide temporary nursing cover
  from 31st March 2015 to 31st March 2016, and if so how much did you pay
  them in total?
**Not used
7. Did you use Team 24 Healthcare to provide temporary nursing cover from
  31st March 2015 to 31st March 2016, and if so how much did you pay them
  in total?
**Not used
8. From 31st March 2015 to 31st March 2016, what is the highest day rate you
  have paid for an agency nurse shift and to which agency was this paid?
**This is commercially sensitive information and hence exempt form disclosure
**under the FOI Act Section 43(2): Commercial Interests. See below:
9. Are there any duties that an agency nurse would not be allowed to carry
  out that a staff nurse of the same rank would be?
**None, all colleagues whether they are Hospital or Agency staff carry out
**the same duties within the area of work.
==========[End of FOI item]==========



On 14-Jun-2016 09:33:45 Ted Harding wrote:
> Greetings All!
> One must try to do one's best with the information one is provided with.
> So I have just done some basis Radical Statistics on a press report.
> I have divided one number by another, looked at the result, and raised
> my eyebrows (as one does).
> 
> According to the East Anglian Daily Times this morning:
>   http://tinyurl.com/hh53v4m
>   "Ipswich Hospital spends £11m on agency staff in a year to tackle
>   'spike in demand'"
> 
> Specifically (I quote):
>   "Ipswich Hospital spent £11,421,000 on agency staff in one year,
>   new figures reveal."
>   [...]
>   "Nearly 11,000 nursing shifts (10,933) were covered by agency staff
>   during the same period."
> 
> So that looks like £11421000/10933 = £1044.64 per nursing shift.
> At this point I duly raised my eyebrows.
> 
> If you interpret "one shift" as (say) 10 hours worked by one nurse,
> who is unlikely to be personally paid more than £200 for it, then
> that would imply that the agency pockets over £800 for that one
> shift worked by one nurse.
> 
> Or perhaps "one shift" means a specific 10-hour shift period during
> which several nurses may work simultaneously. In that case the
> "£1044.64 per shift" could be spread over an average of (say) 5 or 6
> nurses per shift period over the year in question, so about £200
> per nurse per shift period. That now looks more reasonable.
> 
> However, 10,933 such shift periods in one year then needs some
> explanation. Maybe "a specific 10-hour shift period" applies to
> a particular speciality, such as Eye/Cardiovascular/etc., so
> over the range of specialities we can have two or more such shift
> periods simultaneously.
> 
> But there is nothing whatever in that EADT article which helps to
> resolve such an ambiguity! No source is cited.
> 
> So (a) I'm attempting to entertain you RadStats folk with yet another
> example of the inadequacy/incompetence of media reporting of statistics;
> and (b) asking if any of you know what's really happening, and can
> provide a more specifically informative answer (which I am indeed
> interested to know).
> 
> Best wishes to all,
> Ted.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 14-Jun-2016  Time: 10:33:38
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Date: 14-Jun-2016  Time: 23:37:40
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