Mental health units in Norwich and Great Yarmouth will be boosted by the appointment of new doctors.

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has hired 13 doctors in a bid to improve its services and reduce spending on temporary staff.

The group includes consultants, speciality doctors, and speciality registrars, and will work at Norvic Clinic and Hellesdon Hospital, Norwich, Northgate Hospital, Great Yarmouth, and Wedgwood House, Bury St Edmunds.

They have all been appointed on permanent or fixed-term contracts.

The mental health trust spent nearly £25m on temporary staff in the last financial year.

The recruits will be based in the trust's Children and Young People's Service, Gender Clinic, Psychiatric Liaison, Intergrated Delivery Teams, and Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit.

Dr Bohdan Solomka, medical director at the trust, said: 'We are delighted that we have been able to welcome so many new colleagues to our trust over the past few months.

'They bring with them a wealth of experience and expertise which will be of great benefit to our service users, and we look forward to working closely with them over the coming months and years.

'Like many other NHS trusts across the country, we have struggled to recruit to posts due to a shortage of qualified staff coming through the system. 'This has meant we have had to rely on temporary staff to help us continue to deliver safe, effective services for people in Norfolk and Suffolk.

'Reducing our agency spend continues to be a key priority for the trust and we have a clear recruitment strategy in place, which has seen us invest £2.6m in recruiting more staff for inpatient areas and £950,000 in additional community staff.

'This latest raft of new recruits shows that strategy is beginning to bear fruit and we look forward to welcoming more new faces in the near future.' Have you got a health story?

Email nicholas.carding@archant.co.uk