Although to some extent a drop in the ocean of the total budget, in 2024/25 the Dept. of Health (the NHS) has managed to reduce its temporary labour bill by £1bn... which is a reduction of around a third on the previous year's total, which would seem on the face of it good news., provided the savings are going on the recruitment & retention of established medical staff.
@ChrisMayLA6 I suspect a lot of this is due to the employment of 'bank' staff - who take additional work beyond their #nhs contracted hours - usually for another trust nearby. They tend to be skilled and well motivated as well as somewhat cheaper than those provided by outside agencies.
@ChrisMayLA6 oh, you mean newly qualified doctors can't even get jobs as locums any more?
@ChrisMayLA6 ... as long as they are then being used efficiently. Temporary labour is sometimes (when used properly) a perfectly sensible way of coping with lumpy demand as it beats having experts on the payroll who have nothing to do for a significant part of the time.
I think that's fair if that *is* how they're being used, but in the NHS it looks like a shirt-term solution to problems in overall workforce planning, training & retention...
