Southend Hospital has seen more than 700 staff leave the under-pressure trust in the past two years.

Staff cited low morale, pressures, and an excessive daily workload as the main reasons for leaving.

A report showed 33 per cent of the 770 staff who have left had only been working in the trust for less than two years.

Bosses at the hospital, which is currently being regulated by health watchdog Monitor, have now put together a report examining why it has shed so many of its staff, but admitted they fail to compete with London’s hospitals and even Basildon Hospital, who pay more because it is closer to the capital.

Unions have argued severe cutbacks have hit staff morale hard, while governors at the trust have demanded answers.

Sam Older, from Unison, said: “Government targets have not reduced, but staffing numbers have. Low morale isn’t surprising to me.

“They are asking staff to do more and more because of fewer resources, but staff are not getting anything more from it.”

But out of 770 staff that have left since July 2013, 230 left to the pathology lab partnership with Basildon Hospital, run by a private company. The Trust’s headcount has gone from 4,222 in January 2014 to 4,178 in July, but according to unions, the hospital has a vacancy rate of between 15 to 20 per cent, and last October, one in ten roles were unfilled.

The Trust has also appointed a consultancy firm, Great With Talent, to conduct exit interviews with staff leaving, but would not reveal how much they had been paid.

Mr Older said pay freezes and more lucrative terms offered by London hospitals also contributed to staff leaving the Prittlewell Chase site.

And governors admitted the situation needs explaining to them and bemoaned Southend being so close to the higher-paying London hospitals.

Alan Crystall, a governor at the trust, said: “One of the problems is the London weighting that allows Basildon Hospital to pay more because it is so close to London.

“Clearly, if there is a report on staff leaving, it must be a concern and I think there should be explanations made to the governors.

“There has not been a pay rise there for a long time because of the public sector freeze, which could contribute to low morale, but I’d be keen to see what the explanations are.”

We struggle to compete with a hospital ten miles down the road

Southend Hospital’s senior bosses have admitted they struggle to compete with London hospital pay – and even a trust only ten miles down the road.

London Hospitals, as well as Basildon Hospital, offer NHS workers more cash than others across the country because they are in or close to the capital.

Mary Foulkes, Southend Hospital’s HR director, also said some of the people who have left the trust are junior doctors who move to different organisations as part of their training.

She said: “Where we have noticed a higher than expected trend is around staff turnover for those who have been with us for less than two years. Some of that may be around lack of progression because of the stable workforce we have in more senior roles. Part of the reason this report was commissioned was to help us better understand that.

“Both recruitment and retention is a huge priority for the trust, particularly as we are competing for talent within the same labour market as our neighbouring trust, where all employees receive an outer London premium, which is funded centrally.

Agency bill is still over £1million a month

Southend Hospital is still spending more than £1million a month on stop-gap staff.

In August, the last month the figures were released, the trust spent £1.2million on agency staff, despite employing consultants Kingsgate to try to cut down on this type of spending.

Kingsgate, who are still used by the trust, were paid £343,000 in six months at the start of 2015, but the hospital’s deficit rose to £9.8million under their watch.

And latest figures show the hospital is still paying out on temporary staff, because of high vacancy rates, staff turnover, and a well publicised struggle to appoint local nurses and doctors.

However, the hospital has still cut back on its agency spend. Last October, it spent a record high £1.9million on temporary staff.