Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of how much was spent on locum doctors in the NHS in each of the last five years.

The Department collects spend on agency and contract staff (which would include locum doctors) but locum doctors are not identified separately.

Following the Francis[1] report many trusts increased their spend on temporary staffing, including locum doctors, to meet safe staffing levels.

The Department expects trusts to have a strong grip on their finances, and manage their contract and agency[2] staffing spend (including use of locum doctors) responsibly through effective and efficient workforce planning and management.

[1] http://www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com/

[2]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) .