Promises, promises... we’ve seen this ‘agency savings’ plan before

THE Labour Court recommendations on nurses’ pay suggest money for salary hikes can be found by reducing the spend on agency nurses – but the health service has promised this many times before.

The recommendations state that ‘there will be reductions in spending on agency staff in nursing and midwifery as a result of the rollout of the Safe Staffing Framework’, and that ‘the employer will attribute specific reductions in agency spending consequent on the implementation of this matter’.

Both the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Government have agreed in the past on the need to reduce the health service’s dependence on agency staff. According to HSE figures, €114million was spent in 2018 on agency nurses, which is up from €100million in 2017 and well above the spend of €54million in 2007.

While the spend on agency staff by the HSE has long been talked about as a problem, it has only ever increased.

The Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) 2018-2020 said that management of the various public services should minimise the use of agency staff as far as is possible and practicable over the lifetime of the agreement.

Last April, the Department of Health announced a new plan to determine the number and type of nurses needed in each hospital, with one of the aims being the reduction in the agency staff spend. The HSE’s 2016 National Health Service plan also called for a reduction in the spend on agency staff.

‘There is a need to further reduce the cost and reliance on agency staff,’ the plan read. ‘The use of agency staffing and/or overtime will be strictly controlled in 2016 to deliver the necessary savings set out in this plan.’

The National Health Service Plan for 2012 also had a similar line, saying ‘we also need to need to reduce agency usage, overtime, and premium payments’ and that ‘we have built up an unaffordable reliance on agency staff’.