THE NHS has squandered billions on agencies that could have been used to hire over 31,000 nurses, says the Royal College of Nursing.
New analysis of findings from a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to NHS trusts across England, which received 182 responses from 202 trusts, exposes a £3bn spend on agency staff by hospitals in England to plug chronic staff shortages.
Poor government planning and underfunding of the NHS has forced trusts in each region to spend millions that could have paid the salaries of almost 31,000 full-time nurses.
The analysis by the Royal College of Nursing found hospitals spent a total of £3.2bn between 2020-2022 to cover gaps in rotas and keep wards open.
Three-quarters of the vacancies in the NHS could be filled if the money had been redirected to hiring permanent staff.
The money spent on agencies could have covered the salaries of 30,956 permanent full-time equivalent nurses (FTE) paid at the top of a Band 5 salary (£34,581).
Instead, the recruitment crisis in the NHS is forcing hospitals to spend vast sums on agency staff as services run under the strain of over 40,000 vacant nursing posts.
Alternatively, the RCN analysis reveals the money spent on agencies could have trained over 86,000 new nurses.
Research by London Economics for the RCN estimates the cost of training a nurse is £37,287.
But every year trusts are spending more on agency staff, and the findings demonstrate costs spiralling by 63% from £800m in 2020 to £1.3bn in 2022.
Costs were highest in London, where hospitals spent £630m on agency staff, while in the North of England, hospitals paid out £109m for staff working temporary shifts across the three years.
Whilst vast sums are being spent to plug holes in rotas in the short term, the RCN is asking how the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan will be funded.
‘To grow the profession, the government needs to demonstrate it is committed to making nursing more attractive, starting with fair pay,’ the RCN stresses.
Alarmingly, despite the need to increase nursing student numbers to achieve the plan’s targets, the most recent figures show a 12% drop in the number of people accepted onto courses to study nursing.
An average nursing student takes on a debt burden of £50,000.
The RCN is calling on the government to abolish tuition fees for prospective nursing students and provide loan forgiveness for those who have already paid for their education.
RCN Chief Nurse Professor Nicola Ranger, said: ‘Ministers have got their priorities wrong – forcing trusts to squander billions on agency staff while they provide miserly funding for fair pay and nurse education.
‘With cuts to nurse education and maintaining unfair pay levels, ministers are choosing to spend the money on much higher private agency bills instead, this is yet another false economy when it comes to NHS spending.
‘This should act as a wake-up call.
‘The government must give nursing staff and patients the investment and respect they deserve.
‘Not acting now will mean even more patients on waiting lists and the crisis in the nursing workforce deepening further.’
The RCN submitted a Freedom of Information request to NHS trusts in England on spending on agency nursing staff between 2020 and 2022.
A total of 182 trusts provided usable data that showed £3,211,438,575 was spent on agency staff to plug gaps in nursing rotas.
The average agency spend each year (£1,070,479,525), would pay the salaries for 30,956 permanent Full-Time Equivalent Nurses (FTE) on the top of a Band 5 salary (£34,581) at the 2023/24 NHS pay scales.
While some in the nursing profession prefer the flexibility of working as agency nurses, massive spending on regularly staffing shifts points to a need for the government to do more to attract people into working in the NHS. This must start with fair pay.
The RCN is the largest professional union of nursing staff in the world.
- Commenting on the government’s announcement on Monday that councils in England will receive £40m extra to enhance social care with the aim of freeing up hospital beds, Unison union head of social care Gavin Edwards said: ‘This is a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the problem.
‘It will do next to nothing to fix the deep-rooted problems in social care. Anyone trying to arrange a care package knows all too well that the system is broken.
‘Instead of endless short-term measures to patch up a sector in crisis, the government must commit to complete reform.
‘What’s needed is a national care service that’s adequately funded, with proper standards and fair pay for its workforce.’
Commenting on evidence from former health and care secretary Matt Hancock to the Covid inquiry about sick pay rates during the pandemic, Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: ‘It’s a shame Matt Hancock wasn’t as enthusiastic about boosting sick pay when he was in government.
‘Pitifully low rates meant care staff went into work when they had Covid, simply because they couldn’t afford to stop home and isolate.
‘Increasing sick pay would undoubtedly have helped prevent virus spread.
‘Matt Hancock claimed the infection control fund would ensure no care worker lost out financially if they had to call in sick.
‘But his scheme was a spectacular failure, and everyone kept telling him as much.
‘Nowhere near enough of the money ever reached the frontline.
‘Care staff either lost wages or continued working with the virus, with disastrous consequences.’
- Doctors union the British Medical Association (BMA) is calling for urgent action to protect our health and address growing inequalities.
It says: ‘Before anyone had even heard of Covid-19, gains in life expectancy – a key measure of our health – had already started to stall while health inequalities were widening after a decade of austerity.
‘The pandemic made matters substantially worse, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis is likely to mean even more sickness and ill health this winter and beyond. The country is getting sicker, and the government isn’t doing enough about it.
‘Despite a welcome decision to uprate benefits in line with inflation, the number of people experiencing poverty is still predicted to hit record highs in the coming months.
‘The government have allocated additional funding for the NHS, social care, and schools, but other public services of vital importance to health are left open to cuts in years to come.
‘The promised plan to tackle health inequalities seems unlikely to be published, and policies to reduce high rates of smoking and obesity have either been delayed or are at risk of being eroded.
‘Urgent action is needed
‘The BMA is calling for the UK government to act to protect the nation’s health. In particular:
‘1. We want to see people’s economic security protected. No one should be left unable to afford a healthy life;
‘2. We want to see our public services protected. Public services must be properly funded, not eroded;
‘3. We want to see the protection and introduction of policies that keep us well. There must be no more delays to the policies that prevent and tackle ill health.’
