Oxfordshire hospitals are at the centre of a national drive to slash spending on temporary staff hired from agencies.

The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust is among 30 trusts which are exploring ways of cutting back on the use of agency workers.

The move comes after it was revealed earlier this month that the bill for temporary workers at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Radcliffe Infirmary, and the Horton Hospital, in Banbury, was £4.44m in the last three months of last year.

Health Minister Lord Warner has launched the Reducing Agency Costs Project to help NHS hospitals share ideas to curb the amount paid for temporary staff.

As reported in the Oxford Mail, managers at the ORH are already working on an in-house project to reduce use at their four hospitals and hope to end the need for agency staff within a year.

They are looking at ways to recruit more permanent staff and to help retain the existing workforce -- by reducing the 20 per cent turnover seen last year.

Michael Fanning, the deputy chief nurse at the ORH trust, said: "Being involved in this project will complement our own internal work towards reducing agency costs.

"We look forward to working with and learning from other organisations within Thames Valley and the UK."

Nationally, the NHS spent £1.45bn on agency staff last year, accounting for more than five per cent of the NHS's pay bill.

Lord Warner said: "Temporary staff can provide an essential service to the NHS, by providing care to patients on a flexible basis, but costs of agency staff have been rising too rapidly."

"I believe it is important trusts manage their flexible workforce requirements in the most economical and effective way possible and this means reducing spend on agency staff.

"There's growing evidence that demand for often expensive agency staff can be managed down through better planning and more flexible use of NHS staff."