Calls for new not-for-profit agency to save NHS money on ‘eye-watering’ private fees

A North Wales MS is calling for a new not-for-profit agency to be set up to provide staffing cover and save money for the NHS.

Llyr Gruffydd, who represents the region in the Senedd, spoke out after hearing Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB), spent an “eye-watering” £48.8 million on agency and bank staff supplied by privately-run companies in 2021-22.

Mr Gruffydd argues that the current system for providing staffing cover is “contributing to the problem” and “worsening the crisis in the NHS”.

New figures have shown that in total, the Welsh NHS spent £260m on agency and bank staff in the last year in order to fill gaps in its rotas.

The only health board in Wales to spend more than BCUHB on agency and bank staff in 2021-22 was Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which covers south-east Wales, with £57.5m.

Llyr Gruffydd MS said: “The current system for providing staffing cover to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board isn’t even penny wise, and it’s pound foolish to the tune of tens of millions.

“The money that is squandered on private fees could and should be invested in frontline services and in ensuring health workers get a fair and liveable wage.

“The latest figures are eye-watering and point to a deep structural problem in the NHS that the Welsh Government has completely failed to get a grip of.

“The current system is contributing to the problem and worsening the crisis in the NHS.

“Without root-and-branch reform to long-term workforce planning the health service will continue to disintegrate.

“The answer to this issue is to create a brand new not-for-profit agency to provide staffing cover. The Welsh Government has already accepted this principle in the education sector where Plaid Cymru has won the argument for a not-for-profit approach to supply teaching.

“This proposal would ensure that health workers in the Welsh NHS want to work more flexibly, with increased control over their own hours and work–life balance and the ability to choose where they live and what they do at work could continue to do so.

“But it would also bring the fees paid by health boards down to a fair, reasonable and sustainable level because it would do away with the need to provide private firms with bumper profits.”