According to the Migration Advisory Committee (2016), 10% of the nursing budget is currently spent on agency staff – equating to £1bn per annum, or 1% of the NHS total budget. That’s a huge figure!
So what does that look like per nurse? MAC (2016) estimate that the average agency locum gets paid £39 per hour, and the average bank nurse costs £27 per hour. Assuming that these roles are required 37.5 hours per week for 52 weeks of the year, it costs healthcare employers over £76,050 to hire a locum nurse for the year and £52,650 for a bank nurse. That’s compared to an average salary of £25,500 for a mid-level Band 5 permanent nurse.
That means that if a healthcare employer is hiring 10 agency locum nurses, they are paying between £270,000 and £505,000 more than they would be paying for permanent nurses.
|
Type of nurse |
Estimated annual cost of 10 nurses |
Potential saving that could be generated by hiring a permanent nurse instead |
|
Agency Locum Nurse |
£760,500 |
£505,500 |
|
Bank Nurse |
£526,500 |
£271,500 |
|
Permanent Nurse |
£255,000 |
n/a |
Undoubtedly employers have to resort to agency and bank nurses in the short term to ensure satisfactory levels of patient care. However, a long term investment in international recruitment means that these costs can be significantly reduced in years to come.
Unavoidably there are some costs associated with international recruitment – visas, flights, the Immigration Skills Charge. But all of these costs are recouped within just 12 weeks when compared to the cost of an agency locum, or 24 weeks when it comes to the cost of a bank nurse.
We have a large pool of talented, qualified nurses outside of the UK desperate to live and work in our health system, and a dire shortage of sufficient nurses here. It seems logical that we would take the opportunity to create a win-win situation for our healthcare system and for the international nurses who want to work in it.
Check out a video CV of one of our Filipino nurses here: https://myhealthcarerecruit.hiringplatformeu.com/profile/1505894487/20327
We have a number of IELTS ready nurses available and keen to work in the UK – please get in touch if you are interested at: sarah@myhealthcarerecruit.com
My Healthcare Recruit supports UK healthcare employers in the public, private, and care sector to find international nurses who are a great fit for their organization, by using market-leading video interviewing tools to connect them to our database of qualified candidates. Our innovative approach makes international candidates easier to find and more cost-effective to source than ever before. Find out more at www.myhealthcarerecruit.com