Recruiters have been left shocked, angry and confused after the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) announced tougher new guidance for the supply of clerical and administrative staff.

The new guidelines, which were due to come into effect at the beginning of February, put clerical and admin staff on a par with health professionals in day-to-day contact with patients.

However, it has now emerged that PASA has suspended its audits of agencies which are signed up to the Framework Agreement pending a meeting with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which is due to take place on 27 February to discuss industry concerns.

Recruiters are particularly concerned that under the guidelines all clerical staff must now be immune from Hepatitis B before they are supplied, even if they have no contact with patients — a stipulation which is not required for equivalent NHS staff.

Michael Mays, manager of the Leeds branch of Taskmaster Resources, spoke to Recruiter after a meeting with PASA. He said: "There was a look of horror on the faces of everyone at the meeting, from the biggest agencies to the smallest, right across the board.

"From an agency point of view it's not so practical for admin staff because they have got a choice of where to work. There are thousands of admin jobs in Leeds, and they may choose to go and work in RBS rather than in the NHS."

Tom Hadley, REC director of external relations told Recruiter: "Our view is that extending requirements such as immunisation to all admin staff is hard to justify and would be very hard to comply with."

Kevin Randell, director of Sonographers Medical, told Recruiter that it was an unfair requirement and suggested someone should take PASA to an Employment Tribunal.

"It does put us off signing up to future PASA agreements. They change the rules as they go along. The NHS don't apply those same rules when recruiting."

Hadley said the REC will meet with agencies on 25 February to prepare an industry position before meeting with PASA.

PASA said it had an ongoing dialogue with the REC.