A high number of women on maternity leave is adding to staff shortages at Oxford hospitals.

NHS managers are tackling the issue in a series of measures to eradicate the need for high-cost agency staff at the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals and the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and The Horton, Banbury.

Julie Hartley-Jones, chief nurse at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, which oversees the four sites, said a combination of maternity leave, sickness and high vacancy rates in specialist areas led to an agency bill of about £1m a month.

She said: "We've got to look at the establishment in wards, so we can be more flexible to cover annual leave, sickness and maternity leave.

"The number of hours lost through maternity leave is colossal across the NHS. It's going to be when we have a primarily female workforce of child-bearing age. In fact, maternity leave is something that is not really covered in trust board meetings."

Ms Hartley-Jones said that while the overall nursing and midwifery vacancy rate was currently a low 10.9 per cent, leaving about 293 posts empty, sickness rates of four per cent and maternity leave added to the problem.

But she was confident that by thinking "creatively" to smooth out staff shortages, the trust could stop using agency staff by the autumn.

Ways to entice nurses to the ORH could include offering a premium on top of the basic salary, similar to a scheme used to attract radiographers. The second phase would involve rearranging staff so that absences or increases in patient numbers did not impact on the wards, by reducing the demand for agency workers at short notice.

Finally, using new techniques to retain current staff, the need for temporary workers would vanish.