Clampdown to end the £3.3bn agency staff ‘rip-off’

A CrACkDowN on agencies ‘ripping off the NHS’ by charging extortionate sums to supply nurses and doctors will be unveiled today.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he would set a maximum hourly rate to prevent situations where agency doctors cost hospitals as much as £3,500 for a single shift.

every NHS trust will be set an annual limit for spending on agency staff, which will be reduced over time.

And hospitals will require specific approval from the Department of Health for any consultancy contracts worth over £50,000.

‘expensive staffing agencies are quite simply ripping off the NHS,’ said mr Hunt.

‘The NHS is bigger than all of these companies, so we’ll use that bargaining power to drive down rates and beat them at their own game.’ Agency bills have mushroomed in recent years, despite evidence that patients do better when treated by permanent staff.

In the past three years alone, the bill for outside staff has risen from £1.8billion to £3.3billion. It is more than the total cost of dealing with last year’s 22million Accident & emergency admissions.

The total bill for management consultants in the NHS last year hit a staggering £600mil- lion – about twice the value of the cancer drugs fund. Last month a report by the health regulator monitor found a huge ‘overreliance’ on contract and agency staff meant NHS trusts reported a £349million deficit during the last financial year, taking trusts in england overall to £822million in the red.

Government sources acknowledged last night it would take some time to wean hospitals off their dependence on agency staff.