Jeremy Hunt has ordered the NHS to curb its use of employment agencies and rein in spending on temporary staff.
The health secretary has told the NHS to cut its £3.3bn bill for agency staff, a sum that has risen from £1.8bn in the past three years.
New government rules will impose a maximum hourly rate for agency doctors and nurses and cap the amount that NHS trusts in financial difficulty can spend on agency staff. An approved list of employment agencies will be drawn up and trusts banned from using agencies that have not been approved.
Sums charged can be up to £1,800 a day for an agency nurse and £3,500 per day for a doctor, according to reports.
“Expensive staffing agencies are quite simply ripping off the NHS. It’s outrageous that taxpayers are being taken for a ride by companies charging up to £3,500 a shift for a doctor,” Hunt said.
But some experts have raised doubts about how Hunt’s proposal would work, as the NHS has chronic staff shortages in many specialisms, including nurses, GPs, A&E doctors and radiologists.
And the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, claims some of these rising costs can be attributed to staffing cuts in the last parliament and a fall in the number of nurse training places in England.
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