Hospitals across Sussex have been paying inflated hourly rates for agency staff to cover shifts.
Freedom of Information figures reveal agencies at some of the county's trusts are being given more than £100 an hour to supply doctors and more than £75 for nurses.
Hospital managers have been battling spiralling agency costs this year because of a combination of staff shortages and an increase in patients.
Some of the highest rates in the county were £105 an hour paid for a consultant gynaecologist at East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, the equivalent of an annual salary of more than £185,000.
The normal annual salary is around compared to a normal rate of £128,000.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust paid out £93.50 paid out to another gynaecologist, the equivalent of £164,793 a year.
South Downs Health NHS Trust, which provides community services in Brighton and Hove, paid £75.76 for a Grade 5 nurse, working out an annual salary of £133,527. around five times the usual salary of around £26,000.
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