Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they place a limit on the daily payment of doctors, nurses and other professionally qualified staff hired by the National Health Service from the private sector.

It is not for the Department to place a limit on the daily payment of doctors, nurses and other professionally qualified staff hired by the National Health Service from the private sector.

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

Trusts have access to these staff at appropriate prices through frameworks managed by the Crown Commercial Service and the 4 NHS procurement hubs and we are working with, for example, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority, to encourage trusts to use these frameworks.

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

Where appropriate, we shall also be using the newly published section 42 guidance, for trusts requiring financial support, to expect those trusts to reduce their spending on agency staffing over the course of the next financial year.