Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that ending enhanced payments for NHS nurses covering staff shortages does not increase reliance on agency staff.

These specific assessments have not been made.

We will publish a refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade. This will ensure the National Health Service has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it.

It is the responsibility of local organisations to ensure they have the right numbers of staff with the right skills to deliver services, supported by guidelines by national and professional bodies, including the management of any staff shortages. The Department does not hold information on any locally negotiated arrangements for enhanced payments that individual NHS organisations might offer as incentives to cover staff shortages.

The national provisions for payment of unsocial hours premia and overtime are set out in the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook. These provisions are specific to Agenda for Change staff and include nurses.