HOSPITALS are haemorrhaging more than 1,500 staff a year due to the high cost of living in Oxfordshire.

Shocking figures have revealed that the Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust is losing more than 13 per cent of its staff every 12 months.

Despite the turnover rate dropping since January the trust still shed 1,560 of its 11,500 staff members between October last year and September.

The Royal College of Midwives has warned that a high staff turnover can “put pressure on existing staff”.

New chief executive Dr Bruno Holthof, who took over from Sir Jonathan Michael last month, said the problem is the high cost of living in Oxfordshire.

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Dr Holthof told the trust’s board of directors that his goal is to stop so many staff leaving.

He added: “A lot of people like to come here to Oxford for some training or development, but at some point in time they are faced with the extremely high cost of living.

“So we are losing quite a large number of people and the focus should be trying to maintain the retention rate.”

The high cost of living across Oxfordshire has hit people trying to get on to the property ladder, with the average salary needed to buy a flat in the city estimated to be £89,000.

This compares to the average salary in Oxford, which is £27,214, according to price-comparison website Gocompare.com.

Royal College of Midwives (RCM) regional head for south England Karen Constantine said when people leave in large numbers you lose “talent and organisational knowledge which you can’t replace quickly or easily”.

She added: “You can get morale going down because people see their colleagues going off and doing a little bit better, maybe more money or the same money with more standard hours.”

But she welcomed the trust’s plans to introduce a living wage of £8.07 an hour in April next year, which will increase the wage of around 5.5 per cent of its workforce.

Oxford University Hospital’s organisational development and workforce director Mark Power said the trust has 650 employee who receive an annual salary which falls beneath the national living wage rate of £7.85 per hour.

He told told the board that staff enjoy working for the trust, but cannot afford to live in the area.

He added: “More and more staff are saying ‘we want to stay with you, we rate the trust and enjoying being here, but we cannot afford to stay in Oxford.

“We have to do something significant to help people financially to stay in their post.”

Royal College of Nursing senior officer Victoria Couling said it was depressing for nurses who have trained in Oxford to be forced out by high prices.

She added: “Oxford is a very expensive place to live - rents are high and there is a lack of affordable housing - but nurses here aren’t offered cost of living subsidies.

“It’s very demoralising when they are forced to travel outside Oxford because they simply can’t afford to live and work here.”

The turnover rate has reduced from 13.7 per cent in January to 13.58 in September, but it is still above the national target of 10 per cent.

It’s a measure of how many staff have left the trust during the previous 12 months based on the number of people who were working at the beginning of the period.

The highest turnover of staff at the trust - which manages the John Radcliffe, Churchill and Horton hospitals as well as the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre - is in nursing and midwifery, which accounted for 56 per cent of all leavers up to September.