WORKING as a bank nurse offers the chance to choose the hours which suit you.

Once registered as a bank nurse with Salisbury District Hospital, you log into an online system and scroll through a list of wards and available shifts.

Nina Griffin, a bank nurse from Amesbury since October, said: “You find a shift and a ward that you prefer around four to six weeks in advance depending on the area you want to work, press the button and book it – that’s it.

“You’re in charge of your own working style, and can pick and choose which shifts and where you work.

“The reason I’m a bank nurse is because of flexibility – I can work around my children – and I like working at a small trust which is like a big family where you can walk down the corridor and know everybody.”

Ms Griffin, who qualified as an adult nurse at Salisbury District Hospital in 2007, worked on the Britford Ward as a surgical nurse fulltime until giving birth to her first daughter in 2011.

Now that her second daughter is one, Ms Griffin does an average of between two and three shifts a week, often working on the surgical wards.

“Bank nurses are paid weekly rather than monthly so it’s good for people who might want to earn a bit of extra money in the week, perhaps to go on holiday or something else,” she said.

“People who work on wards can also do bank shifts on top of their contracted hours.

“Sometimes if they are on annual leave and want to do an extra bit of work, they do so via the bank.

“For bank nurses, rather than taking annual leave, you get paid for your annual entitlement.”

When the hospital is unable to cover shifts with either salaried nurses or bank nurses, it has to turn to agency staff, often blamed as one of the causes of growing trust deficits due to the high costs involved.

In total, the hospital has 1,040 registered nurses and midwives, which includes 910 substantive, or salaried nurses, and 130 bank nurses.

Each week between 150 and 250 agency staff nurses are employed, costing the hospital between £175k and £344k.

The cost depends on how much patient demand the hospital is experiencing at the time.