06 May 2005
The cost of employing agency nurses and other temporary staff has fallen for the first time in recent years, according to a leading independent health care analyst.
In its annual review of NHS trust financial information published this week, Laing & Buisson reported that spending on agency staff totalled £1.63bn in 2003/04, down from £1.64bn in 2002/03. This fall followed annual growth of 28% in 2002/03 and record annual growth of 31% in 2001/02.
As a proportion of UK trusts' total staff costs, agency costs fell sharply from a record 5.2% a year earlier to 4.7%.
The review added that judging from business trends over the past 12 months it was likely that the share of total staff spending had dropped further in 2004/05.
NHS Employers deputy director Alastair Henderson welcomed the news. 'Nurses and other staff from agencies cost NHS organisations far more than employing permanent staff at the same level,' he said.
'While there will always be a need for temporary workers in the NHS — and having agency staff is better than having no staff — it is in everyone's interests to reduce the costs that NHS organisations are spending on agencies.'
Laing pointed out that UK agency spending had dropped in England only, where trusts spent 5.1% of total staffing expenditure on agency workers (down from 5.8% a year earlier).
Although agency spend grew in the rest of the UK, proportions of total spending remain lower than they are in England (3.1% in Scotland, 2.6% in Wales and 2.5% in Northern Ireland).
It attributed the fall in spending in England to the introduction of NHS Professionals, the in-house staffing agency, and downward pressure on contracts with agency providers.
Laing tempered its good news about agency costs by revealing that total NHS income from private patients rose from £388m in 2002/03 to £397m in 2003/04.
This 2.3% rise followed growth of 7.9% in 2002/03 and of 7.6% in 2001/02. A cap on foundation trusts' private earnings and reduced private patient demand precipitated the slowdown.
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