NHS spending £1.5bn a year on temporary nurses as staff leave in droves, study reveals

Patients’ health could be put at risk by constant changing of staff, says report

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The NHS is spending almost £1.5bn a year on agency nurses while its own staff are leaving in droves, a new report suggests.

The vast outlay on temp workers would be enough to pay the wages of 66,000 full-time positions for a year, according to the study by The Open University.

It claims the health of patients could be put at risk because of the constant churn of staff.

And the report – compiled using a series of Freedom of Information requests – says the trend is only set to continue with 70 per cent of nurses leaving the NHS within 12 months of qualifying.

Low pay, heavy workload and lack of access to professional development are all blamed for the outflow.

Jan Draper, professor of nursing at the university, said: “The sector is facing challenging times. Relying on temporary nurses to plug gaps is just sticking a plaster over the problem, and costs considerably more than if vacancies were filled permanently.

“We know that poor retention and low recruitment results in inefficiencies and ultimately puts patient care at risk, so it’s vital we look to a more strategic and sustainable approach.”

The study, Tackling The Nurses Shortages, asked 241 of the UK’s health trusts about their use of agency nurses.

It found in total they had spent £1.46bn on temp workers in 2017. Because such nurses are paid 61 per cent more on average than in-house staff, if vacancies had been filled by permanent employees, the NHS would have saved £560m, the report concluded.

But a corresponding survey suggested the problem may become more pronounced still: it found 35 per cent of nurses are thinking of leaving the NHS.

The shortages had been compounded by a 28 per cent rise in EU nurses quitting Britain since the Brexit referendum, while overseas applicants have almost halved in the same period. The introduction of loans instead of grants for nursing students has also seen applicants fall by a third.

Prof Draper said that new degree apprenticeships should help ease the issue but more needed to be done.

She said: “Taking advantage of recently introduced degree apprenticeships that offer flexible work-based learning is one solution. Not only can this approach inspire and motivate the workforce, it can also increase future nursing supply and reduce retention issues in local communities, helping to reduce the strain on the sector.”

The Department of Health and Social Care said it was training more nurses from this year and had increased pay.

A spokesperson said: “The NHS would collapse without our wonderful nurses – the fact that the NHS is ranked as the safest healthcare system in the world is a testament to them. From this year we will train 25 per cent more nurses, are committed to helping them work more flexibly to improve their work-life balance and have awarded a pay rise of between 6.5 per cent and 29 per cent, in a deal backed by the Royal College of Nursing .”