What a waste of your NHS money
I HAVE been a qualified nurse for 40 years and still work, as I have done for 23 years, for the NHS.
I would happily continue to do so for several more years but I am horrified by the way money is being wasted on paying agency nurses extortionate rates. My NHS colleagues and I have had enough. We are leaving the profession because of this.
I am a staff nurse on a small ward with very few patients in a Cheshire town. My NHS trust hired seven full-time agency nurses, offering them a financial incentive of £4,500, plus rates of pay equating to three times the hourly rate of an NHS nurse in the exact same role.
They also offered relocation payments of up to £8,000, plus travel, hotel and childcare expenses.
Most of the agency nurses work almost 60 hours a week, which means there are no additional shifts or ‘bank shifts’ available for NHS nurses to pick up extra work on the standard pay rate. We are willing to work these extra shifts but hospital managers find it easier to book agency nurses, despite the extortionate costs incurred. On New Year’s Eve, my colleagues worked with several agency nurses. The NHS-qualified nurse earned approximately £200 for working that day, taking charge of the ward and leading the shift. The agency nurse, on the same Band 5 grade, earned £900 for the shift, plus travel and accommodation expenses. The unqualified Band 3 agency nurse earned more than the Band 5 NHS nurses for that same shift.
These agency nurses are block-booked and guaranteed shifts, even if they are not required. This means we are often overstaffed with qualified nurses, so they are paid for doing very little work, without having to shoulder the responsibility an NHS nurse carries. This is happening on every ward in every NHS trust across the country and the cost is unbelievable. The public are told there is insufficient money being paid into the NHS — the truth is, most of it is being used to fund extortionate agency-nurse pay. We are training nurses who leave the NHS to cash in on agency rates as soon as they are qualified.
How do you think my colleagues and I feel when one of us works alongside an agency nurse earning three times our pay rate for doing the same job?
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