Bambos Charalambous
Main Page: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)Department Debates - View all Bambos Charalambous's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend because, when he was working in my Department, he laid a lot of foundations for this deal. He chaired some very important meetings. In particular, one of the most important areas of consensus that has emerged, which he should take enormous credit for, is that we are saying today that the minimum salary for anyone working in the NHS will go up by £2,000. That is going to make a huge difference—100,000 people will benefit from that important change—and he should be very proud of that.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
NHS trusts are spending £3 billion a year on agency staff to plug gaps in the workforce. Has the pay cap not been totally self-defeating and led to huge amounts of public money going to private staffing agencies?
Mr Hunt
What led to the mushrooming agency fee was the realisation, post Mid Staffs, that we needed a lot more nurses. Nursing staff numbers were going down until the Francis report was published, but the report created huge demand among hospitals, which realised they needed to improve patient safety by recruiting more staff. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know, however, that we are bringing down the agency bill, and I expect it to be significantly lower this year.