Delivering agency staff for patients
30 August 2012
The NHS assault on spending on agency staff is set to intensify, a London conference heard this week.
Several NHS staff told the conference 'Delivering for patients: the workforce productivity
Several NHS staff told the conference 'Delivering for patients: the workforce productivity
The NHS assault on spending on agency staff is set to intensify, a London conference heard this week.
Several NHS staff told the conference 'Delivering for patients: the workforce productivity challenge' what they were doing to reduce spending on agencies.
Richard Leigh, of NHS Employers, told delegates that hospitals should raise the authority level for who can make the decision to hire agency staff. He said one hospital had been more effective in reducing the number of people who could authorise spending on agency staff to 30 from 125. "You can get 30 people in one room," he said, arguing this would make it easier to have regular meetings about other ways of addressing staff shortages, such as sharing resources with other departments and altering rotas.
He said the culture of agency spending had to be changed. Agency spending in the NHS peaked at £1.4bn two years ago, and is still more than £1bn a year. The NHS is Europe's biggest employer, with more than 1.4m staff.
Paul Daley and Helen Gordon of University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust told how they'd reduced agency spending on theatre practitioners by 50%, or £755,000. They had developed an in-house bank for theatre staff and were also using the site www.jobs.nhs.uk. This helped reduce the time posts were vacant, the biggest driver of agency spend.
Andrew Wilson, deputy chairman of the REC's nursing group, said the training of agency nurses was just as rigorous as for permanent staff. He said: "The REC understands that the government has to be cost-effective within the NHS. But the PASA (Purchasing and Supply Association of the NHS) framework agreements are driving costs down (Recruiter, 3 May 2006). Agency staff play a vital role in the NHS. They often have to be there at a moment's notice at the weekend or late at night or else operations could be cancelled."
Several NHS staff told the conference 'Delivering for patients: the workforce productivity challenge' what they were doing to reduce spending on agencies.
Richard Leigh, of NHS Employers, told delegates that hospitals should raise the authority level for who can make the decision to hire agency staff. He said one hospital had been more effective in reducing the number of people who could authorise spending on agency staff to 30 from 125. "You can get 30 people in one room," he said, arguing this would make it easier to have regular meetings about other ways of addressing staff shortages, such as sharing resources with other departments and altering rotas.
He said the culture of agency spending had to be changed. Agency spending in the NHS peaked at £1.4bn two years ago, and is still more than £1bn a year. The NHS is Europe's biggest employer, with more than 1.4m staff.
Paul Daley and Helen Gordon of University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust told how they'd reduced agency spending on theatre practitioners by 50%, or £755,000. They had developed an in-house bank for theatre staff and were also using the site www.jobs.nhs.uk. This helped reduce the time posts were vacant, the biggest driver of agency spend.
Andrew Wilson, deputy chairman of the REC's nursing group, said the training of agency nurses was just as rigorous as for permanent staff. He said: "The REC understands that the government has to be cost-effective within the NHS. But the PASA (Purchasing and Supply Association of the NHS) framework agreements are driving costs down (Recruiter, 3 May 2006). Agency staff play a vital role in the NHS. They often have to be there at a moment's notice at the weekend or late at night or else operations could be cancelled."
