NHS spending on agency nurses soars past £5.5bn

[Northerner]

Government accused of ‘truly incompetent planning’ after years of training cuts push cost of temporary staff way over budget.

NHS spending on agency nurses and staff has spiralled to more than £5.5bn over the past four years and is continuing to rise amid a debilitating recruitment crisis in the health service. Budgets for temporary staff this financial year have already been blown apart, it can be revealed, with spending in some parts of the NHS running at twice the planned figure.

Reliance on agencies – at a cost of up to £1,800 per day per nurse – comes as the number of nurse training places in England has been cut. In the last year of the Labour government, 20,829 nurse training positions were filled in England. That fell to 17,741 in 2011-12 and to 17,219 in 2012-13, rising to 18,009 in 2013-14.

According to the latest figures, there were 7,000 fewer qualified nurses in August 2013 compared with May 2010, excluding health visitors, school nurses and midwives. Ministers were accused on Saturday of “truly incompetent planning” by the Royal College of Nurses.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/01/nhs-spending-agency-nurses-cuts

 

[ypauly]

Didn't we have an article in here a few weeks ago stating that the NHS owned the nurses agency? If so they aren't really using agency nurses but NHS ones.

 

[Northerner]

Didn't we have an article in here a few weeks ago stating that the NHS owned the nurses agency? If so they aren't really using agency nurses but NHS ones.

Wasn't that a recruitment agency that was being sold off?

 

[ypauly]

Wasn't that a recruitment agency that was being sold off?

Yeah something like that, but never the less it is obviously the way the NHS wants to operate and they are NHS nurses will working for and NHS agency within the NHS. It just makes the headline confusing as nurses are nurses and the more we spend on them the better.