The future of NHS Professionals, the health service’s in-house recruitment agency, remains uncertain after the government pledged to axe 14 health service quangos by April 2006.

The government has already published plans for the organisation to become a self-financing body within two to three years.

But the decision to embark on a series of reviews to slash spending on health service quangos by £4.8bn suggests the changes could come sooner rather than later.

Following a series of mergers and closures beginning this month, the number of health service quangos will drop from 38 to 34. By next April, the number will be cut to 24.

NHS Professionals costs £33m a year to run and NHS trusts spend an estimated £400m a year on nurse bank staff.

Industry sources have claimed NHS Professionals could become independent from the government in the next series of reviews.

“The government could give over NHS Professionals to the industry and have it run by one or two large agencies or a consortium of large agencies,” said Tom Hadley, director of external relations at industry trade body the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. “Our information is that it is unlikely to be self-financing.”

“Over the past months NHS Professionals, Special Health Authority, has been developing a three-year business plan to March 2008 and this has now been approved by the Department of Health,” an NHS Professionals spokeswoman said.