Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what processes are in place to check whether NHS bank staff are not simultaneously reporting off sick from their permanent place of employment.

NHS England’s data to 6 October 2021 shows there was an average of 74,863 sickness absences in National Health Service trusts per day, of which 15,546 staff were absent for COVID-19 related reasons, including the need to self-isolate. Data is not held centrally on the number of those staff who were simultaneously working for a bank. NHS trusts address any such fraud at a local level through their disciplinary processes.