Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure NHS staff are supported through bank and agency arrangements that may offer different lower pay and different conditions.

No such assessment has been made. The 2025/26 planning guidance requires National Health Service providers to reduce bank expenditure by a further 10%. Bank expenditure limits have also been set for the next three years, requiring reductions of between 7.5% and 15% a year.

NHS England is developing further guidance to support NHS organisations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their staff banks. This includes consideration of bank pay alignment, local policies, and arrangements to support a consistent and sustainable approach to bank working.

These national requirements do not prescribe the contractual arrangements individual NHS organisations should use to achieve these reductions. Bank and agency arrangements, including rates of pay and terms and conditions, remain subject to local decision making.

Bank contracts are locally agreed and subject to individual NHS organisation decision making. NHS England does not determine individual trusts’ contractual arrangements with bank providers.

In addition, framework operators provide a further level of scrutiny through their established provider risk and assurance arrangements, including ongoing financial monitoring and contingency arrangements for framework suppliers.

The points raised regarding pensions and the impact on staff relate to local contractual and employment arrangements and would be for the relevant NHS organisation to address.