Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much overtime was paid to NHS staff in (a) 2015-16, (b) 2014-15 and (c) 2013-14.

The total overtime payments to National Health Service staff are estimated to have been:

- £380 million in 2015-16;

- £362 million in 2014-15; and

- £330 million in 2013-14

These estimates are based on pay information from the NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR), which is the Human Resources and Payroll system for almost all trusts in England. These estimates do not include overtime payments to general practitioners or their staff.

ESR includes hundreds of payment type codes and payment figures are aggregated to high-level groupings using a mapping system. One of the high-level groupings is Overtime/Additional Duty Hours. The estimates provided in the answer above are based on this.

Overtime/Additional Duty Hours is just one way of buying extra staffing resource in the NHS. Shifts, absence and vacancies are also filled using additional activity payments (e.g. additional programmed activities and additional hours at plain time rates for part-time staff), bank contracts, and agency staffing.