Improved staff engagement leads to reduced agency staffing costs

Speaking at the Chief Nursing Officer’s summit, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has heralded research which shows that improved staff engagement is linked to lower staff sickness absence and reduced agency staffing costs.

Commissioned by NHS England and produced by The King’s Fund, the research concludes that: “There is clear evidence that trusts with higher engagement levels have lower levels of sickness absence among staff, and also have lower spend on agency and bank staff.”

Sickness absence rates vary more than two fold between NHS trusts, and there are also large variations in trusts’ staff engagement scores. A one standard deviation increase in overall staff engagement is associated with a £1.7 million saving on agency staff costs for the average trust.

Stevens said: “This research shows that there is indeed a ‘virtuous circle’ – where hospitals and community services involve and engage their frontline staff, sickness absence is low and expensive temporary agency costs are lower. That’s a win for nurses, who are the largest group of health professionals. But it also benefits patients and taxpayers.”

Stevens also used his speech to thank nurses and other NHS staff for their extraordinary commitment to patients over a highly pressurised winter, with flu hospitalisations three times higher than last year.