According to the Department of Health and Social Care, the total spent by trusts on agency staff during 2024-25 was nearly £1bn lower than the previous year.
In a speech to the NHS Providers conference in November, Streeting, the health secretary, said a lack of permanent staff had seen gaps filled by more expensive agency-provided replacements totalling about £3bn a year.
Under proposals outlined at the time, but not yet enacted, Streeting suggested that NHS trusts could be completely banned from using agency staff for lower level jobs such as healthcare assistants and domestic support workers.
In addition to employing agency staff, which can mean paying a doctor thousand of pounds for a single shift, NHS trusts also routinely plug gaps by using what are known as “bank” staff – NHS employees who do extra shifts at their own workplace or one nearby, via an organisation usually run by the trust.
UK-wide figures reported by the Guardian in January 2024 showed that the combined spend of hospitals and GP surgeries for agency staff was an annual £4.6bn, with another £5.8bn used for bank shifts.
As part of the clampdown on agency spending, Streeting and James Mackey, the chief executive of the imminently abolished NHS England, have jointly written to all NHS providers and integrated care board executives to set out that each should target the 30% reduction, and that their progress will be monitored.
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Source: The Guardian, 2 June 2025
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