The annual NHS Staff Survey will be published imminently and is one of the largest workforce surveys in the world. But it has a massive blind spot by excluding the views of agency workers. This means agency workers who fulfil a variety of important NHS roles across the country are excluded from sharing their views on workplace issues, including patient care.
This omission is all the more concerning set amid the Department of Health and Social Care’s plan to curb agency use in the NHS without the NHS having enough information about this critical cohort of its workforce.
In 2023, the NHS Staff Survey was extended to Bank-only workers yet the lived experiences of the temporary workers who work through an agency remains overlooked and without any prospect of change, according to a response from NHS England to a freedom of information request made by REC last summer.
Shazia Ejaz, REC Director of Campaigns, said:
“It is a no-brainer to find out more about the thousands of doctors, nurses, allied professionals and support staff who work through agencies every day. The Department for Health and Social Care and the NHS have questions to answer about the choice to exclude agency workers from a survey aimed at boosting patient safety and service quality.
“Bank staff can speak openly about time pressures, unsafe practice and their willingness to stay in the NHS, yet agency workers are excluded and ignored. It is a serious failure that they have no voice in the NHS Staff Survey at a time when the NHS needs every part of its workforce to tackle long waiting lists. After all, the demand from people to work flexibly through agencies is not going away. Yet the Department of Health and Social Care is pressing ahead with major cuts to agency use without fully understanding how agency workers support services. We would support NHS efforts to incorporate agency temps within future NHS Staff Surveys.”
The NHS will release a report that summarises the national results for Bank‑only workers, including patient‑safety insights. Bank‑only workers were added in 2023 and they provided data on errors/near-misses that trusts previously were not seeing. For context, in the 2024 survey, 29.31 per cent of Bank workers nationally reported seeing errors, near misses or incidents in the previous month that could have harmed staff or patients. Agency workers who routinely witness the same patient‑safety pressures as Bank staff do not have this same means of reporting back to ensure services are improved.
