Spend on agency staff in Wales drastically increasing

The Auditor General for Wales has revealed that NHS spending on agency staff has increased markedly in recent years, representing a rise of 171 per cent over the last seven years.

The report finds that approximately 80 per cent of agency spend to date in 2018-19 is providing cover for vacant positions and the NHS is seeking to reduce both the demand for agency staff and the price it pays for them.

With temporary staff in the NHS generally costing more than equivalent employees on substantive contracts, those supplied by agencies tend to be the most expensive source of temporary staff. The Auditor General’s report says that NHS agency spend in Wales peaked at £164.4 million in 2016-17, with health bodies spending nearly half of their total agency expenditure on medical and dental staff since 2014-15, and a further third on nurses and midwives.

The report stresses that NHS Wales needs ‘consistent and comparable data’ at an all-Wales level to track the ‘volume, nature and cost’ of agency staff used and the impact of changes in agency spend on other temporary staffing costs, such as overtime and internal staff banks. Additionally, future projects to manage agency and other temporary staffing spend will need strong leadership and the capacity to drive change in a timely manner, to deal consistently with difficult decisions.

Adrian Crompton, the Auditor General, said: “This report is packed with useful statistics and insights on the current picture of NHS agency expenditure in Wales. I hope it will be used by a wide range of people and professionals in Wales, along with the data tool we have produced, to help NHS Wales continue to bring down and control these costs at a time of significant financial pressure.”