NHS trusts are paying up to £5,200 per shift for agency doctors, figures discovered by Workforce have shown, with the party saying that low staffing levels resulted in a significant increase in the use of temporary workers last year.
In what Labor called an indication of a “desperate” staffing crisis in the health service, freedom of information calls on all English National Health Service The trust showed they paid £3bn to agencies for staff during 2021-22, up 20% from the previous year.
In addition, the trusts spent £6bn on so-called bank staff – NHS professionals paid to take temporary shifts, including employees looking for additional work.
In response to a question about the most they had paid that year for a single doctor’s shift, one in three trusts said it was more than £3,000, and three-quarters paid more than £2,000.
The costliest change overall, at the Northern Care Alliance NHS foundation trust in Greater Manchester, cost £5,234. The same trust spent more overall on agency doctors: £21m last year.
One of Labor’s big pushes for its NHS strategy would be to recruit more permanent staff, including doubling places at medical schools to 15,000 a year.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said it was “maddening that while taxpayers are overpaying for agency doctors, the government has cut places at medical schools.”
Separately, Streeting has engaged in a bitter war of words with the British Medical Association (BMA) after saying the doctors’ union would have to be more accepting of the change if a Labor government was to provide more resources to the NHS.
The BMA criticized Streeting for what it called “disappointing” comments after he used an interview to accuse the union of being hostile towards vitally needed NHS reform efforts.
street had told the Sunday Telegraph: “As we have committed to more staff, I cannot understand why the BMA is so hostile to the idea that with more staff there must be better standards for patients.
“Every time I point out the appalling state of access to primary care, where currently a record 2 million people wait over a month to see a GP, I am treated like some kind of heretic by the BMA, who seem to think any criticism. of patient access to primary care is in some ways an attack on GPS.”
In the interview, Streeting highlighted what he called a “something for nothing culture in the NHS” and accused the BMA of being out of touch.
A vote last month by GPs in England to cut main surgery hours from 9am to 5pm made doctors “look like they live on a different planet and, worst of all, they’re not thinking really in the best interests of the patients. Streeting said.
Dr Emma Runswick, vice chair of the BMA council, said the comments were “incredibly disappointing”.
She said: “Anger over that crisis must be directed squarely at the government and its failure to invest, not at those who work in the NHS or the unions that represent them.
“It wasn’t that long ago that Mr. Streeting and the Workforce they were applauding healthcare workers for their contributions during the pandemic, so to hear them now accusing staff of a ‘something for nothing’ culture and potentially supporting further pay cuts in real terms will leave many employees extremely concerned.”
The BMA accepted “that a strong workforce goes hand in hand with patient standards and that investment in the workforce is the only way to improve our NHS,” Runswick added.
“We very much hope that Mr Streeting will turn his attention to challenging this government to ensure that he will offer strong support to doctors, nurses and other NHS workers who are now suffering from unprecedented levels of burnout and exhaustion,” he said.
When asked about comments about Sky’s Sophy Ridge on the Sunday show, Streeting said: “I was responding in that interview with the Telegraph to the criticism that was leveled at me.”
He continued: “I understand the pressure doctors are under, they do a very difficult job in a very difficult context, but what I am saying is that if we invest in the NHS, as the next Labor government will, we have to expect better results for the patients, and ultimately it is my job to be the champion of the patients.”
