§ Lord Tebbitasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have made any estimate of the number of man-days or hours worked within the National Health Service by directly employed and agency nursing staff respectively and of the cost by man-day or hour of each category. [HL2509]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathThe Department of Health records how much the National Health Service spends on agency nurses but does not record how many agency nurses are employed or the amount that individual agency nurses are paid. The salaries of nurses working in the NHS are paid on a number of scales and are made up of an hourly rate and various allowances. The department has not made any assessment of days worked and cost per day of either category.
In the year 1999–2000 the NHS spent £361,656,683 on agency nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff. In the same period the NHS spent £7,330,271,609 on directly employed nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff.
At 30 September 1999, the whole time equivalent number of nurses working in the NHS was 338,582. Given that this figure is a snapshot and not an average across the whole year, it is not possible to derive a cost per day for nursing staff directly employed by the NHS.