05.02.15
NHS spending £1bn on agency nurses
The NHS is on course to spend £1bn on agency nursing staff by the end of the year because of a “payday loan attitude” towards workforce planning, a report has claimed.
Research from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) estimates that NHS trusts will be spending an average of £4.2m every year on temporary nurse cover, for a total of £980m, based on current projections.
This is an increase of 150%, up from £485m in 2013-4 and £327m in 2012-3.
The report from RCN is based on 168 FOI requests from trusts across England. It says that with proper long term planning, this money could have been spent solving the problem of vacant nursing posts.
According to their figures £980m is enough to pay for 28,155 permanent nursing staff, including senior nurses, and with a mix of different bands. The college estimates that there are at least 20,000 nursing vacancies in the UK.
Dr Peter Carter, RCN chief executive, said: "This report shows the true financial cost of a health service which takes a 'payday loans' attitude towards workforce planning, leaving itself at the mercy of agencies because it refused to invest sensibly in the past.
"What it doesn't show is the cost to patients - over-reliance on agency staff is bad for continuity of care, and that is bad for patients.
"Cutting the supply of nurses was reckless and short-sighted but concerns were batted away in a misguided attempt to save money.
"The NHS is under immense pressure and it is now time for serious workforce investment and sensible, long-term workforce planning. Anything less will be selling future generations severely short."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "Patient safety is top of our agenda.
"Since May 2010, we already have 21,300 more permanent clinical staff working in the NHS, including nearly 8,000 more nurses on our wards.
"We want to reduce reliance on agency staff in the longer term, and committed in the recent pay deal to work with the unions to bring the bill down."
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