NHS hospitals are paying agency staff up to £200 an hour to cover shifts, the Tories claimed.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed some staff were paid hourly rates equivalent to salaries worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. The data also showed some agencies were taking large "cuts" in return for supplying workers to the NHS.

The Tories said NHS organisations across England were paying agency staff "hugely inflated" hourly rates to cover gaps in normal cover. The Party asked all NHS trusts to provide details of the highest amount they paid to an agency worker between May and October 2008 and received a response rate of more than 70%.

Whipps Cross University Hospitals NHS Trust said it paid £188 an hour for an anaesthetics medical consultant - equivalent to an annual salary of £366,000. Meanwhile, Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust paid £167 for an A&E doctor, equivalent to an annual salary of £326,000, and Dorset Primary Care Trust paid £158 an hour for a prison GP, equivalent to an annual salary of £307,000.

The data also showed that NHS Wakefield District Primary Care Trust paid £135 an hour for a prison GP, equivalent to an annual salary of £263,000, while Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust paid £131 for a doctor, equivalent to an annual salary of £255,000.

Trusts also paid high sums for non-clinical staff, the figures showed. Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust paid £157 an hour for a senior manager, equivalent to an annual salary of £306,000, while Wandsworth Primary Care Trust paid £147 an hour for a strategic commissioning manager.

The resulting data did not show whether the workers came from privately-run agencies or from NHS Professionals, a non-profit agency set up by the Government to provide flexible staff. However, they are most likely to be fees paid to private firms because NHS Professionals fees are standardised and comparatively low. Most organisations were unable to say how the hourly rate was split between the worker and the agency, the Tories said. But of those that did supply the information, some agencies were found to be taking large cuts.

For example, Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust paid £116 per hour for a nurse but the agency took £50 (43%), and Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust paid £94 per hour for a nurse but the agency took £40 (43%). Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust paid £105 per hour for a doctor but the agency took £45 (33%). Almost £800 million was spent on agency staff in 2006/07, although the Department of Health insists this figure is falling.

Shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said: "Labour's dithering and chaotic, short-term planning has let down NHS staff. Some stability for them is the least we would have expected from the billions that the Government has poured into the NHS. It's incredible that agency staff can be paid such high hourly rates when jobs are being cut at the same time. This is typical of the waste that's occurred under this Labour Government".

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: "Temporary staff have, and continue to have, a key role in helping the NHS to respond to fluctuations in demand for services and in staff availability. Increasing the quality of, and achieving best value for money from temporary staffing is an important aspect of workforce planning in the NHS. We are spending less on agency staff year on year. The total pay bill spent on agency staff has reduced from 5.5% in 2003-04, to 4.2% in 2004-05 to 3.5% in 2005-06, 2.7% in 2006-07 and 3.2% in 2007-08."

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