Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 3 February to Question 135225, how many and what proportion of care workers were agency domiciliary care workers in each of the last 13 years.

According to Skills for Care, 8% of all filled posts in the care sector were bank, pool, or agency in 2021/22. 7% of all filled posts in residential care and 7% in domiciliary care were bank, pool, or agency in 2021/22. In the absence of more complete data on the number or cost of agency staff in previous years, we are unable to make a robust estimate on the annual spend on agency care workers in the last 13 years.