A union leader says hospitals have been forced to 'squander billions' on temporary agency staff to plug the gaps in the workforce, as new figures show nearly £3million was spent on agency nurses last year in two Suffolk hospitals.
The data was released in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
It shows that West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust spent £1,199,285 - and East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) £1,961,801 - on agency registered nurses alone in 2022.
The trusts spent a further £37,722 and £343,387 respectively on agency health care support workers, healthcare assistants, and nursing associates in the same period.
The FOI request to NHS trusts across England received 182 responses from 202 trusts, finding a £3billion spend on agency staff by hospitals in England.
It has been hailed a "false economy", as the vast amounts of money instead could have paid the salaries of almost 31,000 full-time nurses in the country.
The Royal College of Nursing trade union puts this down to poor government planning and underfunding of the NHS, which they say has forced trusts into this position.
These problems could have been avoided, the union argues, if the money had been redirected to hiring permanent staff, and on training new nurses to plug these gaps.
The RCN adds that there has been a 12% drop in the numbers accepted onto nursing courses and so the government needs to demonstrate it is committed to making nursing more attractive, starting with fair pay.
RCN chief nurse professor Nicola Ranger said: “Ministers have got their priorities wrong, forcing trusts to squander billions on agency staff while they provide miserly funding for fair pay and nurse education.
“With cuts to nurse education and maintaining unfair pay levels, ministers are choosing to spend the money on much higher private agency bills instead, this is yet another false economy when it comes to NHS spending.
“This should act as a wake-up call. The government must give nursing staff and patients the investment and respect they deserve. Not acting now will mean even more patients on waiting lists and the crisis in the nursing workforce deepening further.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “These statistics cover the Covid pandemic when the NHS was under huge additional pressure and staff sickness rates were exceptionally high.
“While temporary staffing allows the NHS to meet fluctuations in demand, we are controlling spending by capping hourly pay and prioritising NHS staff when shifts need filling.
“We have recruited more than 50,000 extra nurses compared to 2019 – hitting our target early – and the Long Term Workforce plan is ensuring the NHS has the staff it needs over the next 15 years so that patients continue to receive the best possible care.”
Sue Wilkinson, chief nurse at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Patient safety is always at the forefront of our decisions relating to staffing, both temporary and directly employed.
"However, we are committed to reducing temporary staffing by continuing to strengthen our directly employed nursing numbers. We have over the last year improved our vacancy rate and are seeing a reduction in our agency and temporary nursing spend.
“To help minimise our agency spend, we utilise initiatives such as increasing home-grown talent via apprenticeship pathways and upskilling staff as well as growing our in-house bank service.”
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) was contacted for comment, but directed us to the Department of Health and Social Care.
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