Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much was spent by each NHS Trust and NHS foundation trust on contract and agency staff in each of the last five years.

Following the Francis report many trusts increased their spend on temporary staffing to meet safe staffing levels.

The Department expects trusts to have a strong grip on their finances, and manage their agency and temporary staffing spend responsibly through effective and efficient workforce planning and management.

Spend by each National Health Service foundation trust on contract and agency staff[1] in each of the last five years is attached.

The amount spent by each NHS trust on contract and agency staff in 2013-14 is attached. Amounts for 2009-10 to 2012-13 were not separately identified from other non permanent staff[2].

1. The definition of Contract / Agency staff is: “Agency” employee payments for the employment of staff where the staff remain employees of the agency and “Contract staff” where the NHS trust has control over numbers and qualifications of staff (in contrast to a service obtained under contract) .

[2] non-permanent staff are defined as “others engaged on the objectives of the organisation including staff on inward secondment or loan from other organisations, bank/agency/temporary staff and contract staff.