Recruitment and Employment Confederation deputy chief executive Marcia Roberts has hit out at claims that using agency staffing in the NHS is expensive.
The NHS is seeking to cut costs to minimise deficits. Sian Thomas, deputy director of NHS Employers, has warned that Trusts need to cut back on agencies (Recruiter, 17 May). Thomas urged Trusts to use their own staff banks.
Roberts said: “We often see figures quoted about the cost of agency labour, but these never correctly compare like with like and can be very misleading.”
She added that NHS Trust banks are often populated by nurses on lower grades.
Private agencies are usually called upon when a bank or NHSP (a national bank of nurses run by NHS Professionals) is unable to fill a request, said Roberts. “These are for harder-to-fill shifts and will frequently be requests for staff at a higher grade or for nurses with more specialist skills who naturally command higher pay rates – this applies whether they work in the NHS or through an agency.”
As a consequence, said Roberts, average pay (or cost) of nurses supplied by NHSP and NHS Trusts banks compared to the average of an agency nurse, will appear higher. 
Roberts claims there are further distortions to comparisons because of the NHS not including the costs of training its own staff in its calculations.