The government has cracked down on temporary agency staff in healthcare settings, which has saved almost £1 billion.
This follows spending limits announced last November by health and social care secretary Wes Streeting, when he ordered trusts to reduce their spending on agency staff by thirty per cent in the short term, allowing for more money to be directed towards frontline services.
In 2023-24, the NHS spent a huge £3 billion on agency staff to try tackle long waiting lists, with recruitment agencies charging up to £2,000 for a single nursing unit.
The huge reduction in agency spending has allowed more funding to go towards improving the quality of care patients receive, helping to reduce waiting lists, and enhancing safety, as reducing reliance on agency staff has been shown to decrease clinical incidents.
Yesterday (2nd June 2025), both Streeting and NHS England chief executive Jim Mackey wrote to all trust sand integrated care boards (ICBs), urging them to eradicate agency spending altogether. Should the government not feel that further progress has been made in this department, it will consider taking legislative action.
To ensure these costs stay down, a new delivery group will be established across the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England to monitor progress on tackling agency spending.
Trusts have previously been ordered to reduce reliance on ‘Bank’ staff, a pool of temporary NHS workers, by at least ten per cent.
Health minister Ashley Dalton said: “The taxpayer has been footing the bill for rip-off agencies for too long — while patients have languished on waiting lists and demoralised staff faced years of pay erosion.
“That’s why we are pledging to eliminate this squander, and through our Plan for change we are making major progress and seeing a radical reduction in costs.
“We’re already backing our health workers with above-inflation pay rises and now nearly £1 billion is being reinvested back to the frontline, getting patients off waiting lists and putting money back into our workforce’s pocket.”
