Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will direct his Department to collect information on (a) how many agency staff were employed and (b) what proportion of the total medical staff employed consisted of agency staff in NHS hospitals, by county, in each year since 2005.

Ministers will not direct the Department to collect this information centrally.

However, we expect National Health Service organisations to have a firm grip on their workforce planning and management including their use of medical and non-medical agency staff. Trusts have access to a wide range of advice, guidance and best practice to help them with this.