The annual cost of using agency and bank staff to provide healthcare in the NHS across the UK has risen to more than £10bn, an analysis has found.
A report1 by specialist healthcare data analyst LaingBuisson found that the UK’s agency healthcare staffing market value was £5.1bn in 2022-23—most of which (£4.6bn) was spent on hospital staff while the remaining £500m was spent on hiring GP locums and temporary staff for independent hospitals.
An additional £5.8bn was spent on bank staff—where a trust’s own staff are used to fill shifts rather than using an outside agency. In England this meant a £10.4bn total spend on non-permanent staffing in 2022-23. Figures on bank staff for the rest of the UK are less clear so were excluded …