The NHS has slashed more than £600m from the billions it pays every year for temporary doctors and nurses by cracking down on fees paid, new figures reveal.
Gaps in hospital rotas sent the bill for temporary staff soaring from £2.2bn in 2009-10 to £3.6bn last year. But hospitals have halted the relentless increase in recent years of the rates for stand-in personnel needed to ease chronic understaffing and ensure patient safety on wards.
Data compiled by NHS Improvement, which regulates the health service in England, shows that hospitals spent £613m less since the blitz on agency staff began on 15 October last year, compared to the 12 months before caps on hourly rates were brought in.
In August, for example, NHS trusts spent £252m on agency staff – £61m (19.5%) less than the £313m they paid out in the same month the year before. Similarly, in July they spent £256m compared to their £331m outlay in July 2015.
If maintained, the NHS stands to meet its target of spending £1bn less a year on temporary staff, which would be key to its ambition to reduce hospitals’ collective overspend of £2.5bn last year to £580m. Hospitals are now paying 18% less on average for nurses whom they hire through agencies which NHS England boss Simon Stevens last year criticised for "ripping off the NHS". The limits on fees for stand-ins have also succeeded in reducing the cost of locum doctors, but only by 13%.
Jim Mackey, NHS Improvement’s chief executive, will cite the figures as proof that the NHS is making progress at controlling its costs when he, Stevens and health secretary Jeremy Hunt give evidence to MPs on the Commons health select committee on Tuesday.
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