NHS: Temporary Employment

(asked on 16th March 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much has been spent on agency and locum staff in the NHS in (a) 2009-10 and (b) 2014-15 to date.


Answered by
Dan Poulter Portrait
Dan Poulter
This question was answered on 19th March 2015

In 2009-10, the National Health Service spent £2.23 billion on “agency and contract”1 staff at NHS foundation trusts and “non NHS” staff (which includes agency and locum staff) at other NHS organisations.

In 2014-15 to date (latest figures are up to end December 2014), the NHS spent £1.3 billion at NHS foundation trusts and £1.1 billion at NHS trusts on agency and contract staff.

Following the Francis report many trusts increased their spend on temporary staffing to meet safe staffing levels. The Department expects trusts to have a strong grip on their finances, and manage their contract and agency staffing spend (including use of locums) responsibly through effective and efficient workforce planning and management and to minimise temporary staffing costs in future years.

Notes:

1The definition of Contract/Agency staff is: “Agency” employee payments for the employment of staff where the staff remain employees of the agency and “Contract staff” where the NHS trust has control over numbers and qualifications of staff (in contrast to a service obtained under contract). “Agency and contract” staffs are either hired via an agency or recruited directly and have a contract. Either way they are not on the payroll like permanent employees. A “Locum” is a term used for temporary doctors (only). We cannot separate our data into locum staff.

22014-15 agency and contract figures are from unaudited quarterly monitoring information up to 31 December 2014 provided by Monitor for foundation trusts and NHS Trust Development Authority for NHS trusts.

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