Reducing the Cost of Agency Working in the NHS

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 29 January 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:36, 29 January 2019

Llywydd, I thank the Member for that supplementary question. She's quite right to point to the fact that there are different sorts of agency spending. Some agency spending, where staff are brought in to cover parental leave, or study leave, for example, is planned agency spending and is necessary in any large organisation such as the NHS. The plan has been drawn up to bear down on the costs of non-planned use of agency staff, and there, as Jenny Rathbone has said, some health boards have already made greater progress than others. Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board, in the area that she represents, spends on agency 1.8 per cent of its pay costs as a whole, and that is the lowest percentage of any local health board in Wales. The second phase of the work that I mentioned in my opening answer will involve all health boards in Wales learning from one another, but it will also, in the way the Member said, consider the benefits of an all-Wales staff bank, so that we can use the staff that we have more directly under our employment in order to bring down costs but also to provide a better service.