NHS: Agency Workers
(asked on 22nd January 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the NHS spent on (a) agency staff, (b) agency nurses and (c) locum doctors in each of the last five years.
In 2018/19, trusts spent around £2.40 billion on agency staff – £200 million more than the £2.2 billion target, and about the same as the previous year. Since April 2017, agency costs have consistently been below 5% of overall pay costs and have now fallen to 4.4%. The continued reduction in the proportion of agency staff costs to total pay bill is a significant achievement in view of the record levels of demand and the extreme pressure on the acute sector.
The information requested is shown in the following table.
- | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 |
Total agency spend | £3,189,590,000 | £3,631,790,000 | £2,934,819,560 | £2,406,798,108 | £2,399,645,137 |
Staff group | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 |
Medical agency spend | - | - | £1,049,273,727 | £949,883,470 | £937,864,774 |
Nursing agency spend | - | - | £966,198,378 | £808,661,687 | £843,282,221 |
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We do not hold staff group data for 2014/15 and 2015/16.