The Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting announced strict agency spending limits last November and ordered trusts to reduce their spending on agency staff by 30% in the short term. He claimed the savings will mean more money reinvested in the frontline and the wider NHS workforce. Wes Streeting went further this summer by stating an ambition to eliminate the deployment of staff working through agencies altogether by the end of this government’s term of office. The government thinks it can manage the fallout, partly because they plan to hire back these very same people via staffing banks – often comparatively more expensive than agencies.
REC Deputy Chief Executive Kate Shoesmith said:
“We are in a race against time to safeguard NHS workers’ rights to work flexibly through agencies and ensure there are enough nurses, doctors and support staff, for the winter peak in demand for healthcare.
“The ban on agency working is a hammer blow to thousands of NHS staff who rely on flexible work to balance caring responsibilities, health issues or education. Temporary work is a vital part of today’s labour market as a whole, and health is no exception. Agency staff help keep services running, especially in peak periods and amid worker shortages, and at a price that provides taxpayer value for money.
“We are deeply disappointed the Department of Health and Social Care has refused serious talks with talent and staffing firms to discuss these plans. The government is naïve if it thinks that all agency workers will transfer over to work in permanent positions and staffing levels will remain the same. If they had answered one of our many calls to work with them on a strategic workforce plan, they would be given the reality check they need. Instead, political ideology has prevented the government from a proper partnership that could have served the public much better. Everybody knows the NHS needs more people willing to work for it – and contingent labour has kept things going.”
The new petition is titled ‘Help protect agency work in the NHS’. It is part of a Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) campaign to get the government to rethink its objective and pace to end agency use. The petition has achieved more than 3,500 signatures in just two weeks. As well as urging people to sign the petition, the REC is suggesting members of the public write to their MP to express their concerns about the policy.
As well as the petition, the REC has separately made the DHSC, NHS England, framework providers and NHS Professionals aware of its concerns about this policy and the lack of consultation with stakeholders. REC is asking the DHSC to:
- Publish a detailed plan and timeline for the future of agency working in the NHS.
- Share any directives that it or NHS England have issued to Trusts in relation to this policy.
- Advise us of any legal counsel has been taken by the Secretary of State or associated parties regarding the fact that a non-competitive public procurement system is being created.
- Share any impact assessments that have been undertaken on the potential impact of this extraction of staff on patient care and the overall cost it will add to the NHS.
Kate Shoesmith said:
“The government misleads the public when it suggests that staffing banks cost less than agency workers or that the NHS can eliminate agency staff while still reducing backlogs and maintaining safe staffing levels. If leaders view public-private partnerships as vital in other parts of the NHS, then they must also include workforce provision, which underpins the delivery of these plans.”
