The Ulster Unionist Party has revealed that over the last five years the Northern Ireland health service spent just over £230m on paying agency staff. In addition, the annual cost jumped from £31.7m in 2011/12 to £62.2m in 2015/16.

Ulster Unionist Health Spokesperson, Jo-Anne Dobson MLA, said:

“These figures confirm that the local health service is growing increasingly dependent on astronomically expensive locum staff just to maintain essential services.

“Whilst I understand some level of agency staff will always be required to fill temporary gaps in the workplace, these figures clearly demonstrate that the spending on agency staff has been spiralling year on year and is now most likely contributing to the local health service’s financial woes.

“The almost 100% increase over the last five years would be alarming in any normal circumstances but it is even more shocking given the absolutely dreadful patient waiting times for which I am repeatedly told a lack of finances is the key contributory factor.

“The irony is that I suspect the increasing reliance on bank doctors is a direct result of so many NHS doctors and nurses leaving the service to go work for health agencies. With so many leaving, often attracted by the lure of doing the same work for much better pay, local Trusts are finding themselves caught in the catch 22 situation of having to pay agency staff to cover roles that are only vacant because they themselves left.  

“My Party repeatedly warned over the last five years that staffing was becoming a major problem in our local hospitals. Unfortunately, these concerns were only met with derision by successive DUP Health Ministers and as a result no attempt at workforce planning was made. As a direct result of that, not only are we seeing the costs of locums ballooning but we are also heading for a major staffing crisis with fields such a general practice walking a knife-edge with much of the GP workforce set to retire soon and not enough recruits in the service to replace them.  

“Aside from the sheer absurdity of the local Health Department spending hundreds of millions of pounds on temporary agency staff, instead of spending it on training and retaining enough staff to work directly for the NHS, I am angered that the organisations benefitting the most from the turmoil are the agency companies themselves who are undoubtedly generating considerable profit off the back of the chaos.  

“The Minister urgently needs to realise this growing reliance on bank staff is unsustainable and I would urge her to take long-overdue action to ensure there are sufficient NHS staff in our local hospitals.”