Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each National Health Service hospital which declared a major incident in the period 1 December 2014 to 7 January 2015 inclusive, how much money was spent per year in the preceding two years on the fees and costs of agencies which were contracted to supply (1) doctors, (2) nurses, and (3) other National Health Service staff, to the hospital concerned.

NHS England, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority have advised that this information is not held centrally.

In the context of hospitals currently declaring major incidents, this refers to an emergency situation where particular facilities or resources are under pressure and special arrangements are required to maintain the delivery of some services. It would be for the organisation that had declared the emergency to de-escalate it, in line with its incident response plan.

The use of major incidents has been part of the National Health Service planning process since 2005, and they have been declared in every year since then.

There is no central definition but a major incident in a hospital might be called in:

- times of severe pressure such as winter periods or an infectious disease outbreak; and

- a period of particular local pressure such as dealing with a road traffic accident.