Local hospitals are wasting millions of pounds on temporary nurses from agencies instead of recruiting permanent staff, according to Twickenham MP Vincent Cable.

And he has claimed that more and more hospitals need agencies because they can't hold-on to their staff.

Last year, NHS hospitals spent a total of £445 million in fees to nursing agencies. Kingston Hospital spent £2.5m, Teddington £108,000 and the West Middlesex £2.3m, 16 per cent of its nursing budget.

"The staff may be very good but there is no continuity or commitment to the place of work," said Mr Cable.

"Agency staff also cost around 20 per cent more, which disappears into agency mark-ups a terrible waste since the money should go to the nurses themselves. I fear that because of local staff shortages our local hospitals are exceptionally dependent on agency staff and they are paying through the nose at the expense of services."

John Lister from pressure group London Health Emergency said the problem stemmed from NHS hospitals not paying permanent nurses a high enough wage to keep hold of them.

"It's a short-sighted policy and poor value for money," he explained.

The NHS has got to start paying nurses a reasonable living, enough to cope with the London prices. If it doesn't then its going to have to pay over the odds for temporary staff who dont know the job to do it. Its a crazy system, he said.

A West Middlesex hospital spokesperson said the use of agency nurses was necessary to cover staff illness and that permanent staff couldnt be found quickly enough to fill vacancies.

All hospitals use temporary staff to cover sickness and holidays and for cover before they fill vacancies. You have to be realistic that when someone leaves, we cant always recruit immediately. If someones off sick, what are we meant to do? Close the ward?

Each time we open a new ward, we need 10 to 15 new nurses, but it gets harder to recruit. We recruit locally and also abroad we took on 100 foreign nurses last year, and so the money spent on agency nurses is going down. Temporary nurses are not the ideal solution, but it is the best solution for patients in the short-term, he said.