Why we decided #nomoreagencies

The NHS is our national institution. It’s a cultural beacon made up of all the lovely things - egalitarianism, tea and toast, compassion with a dash of no-nonsense thinking - that make us proud to be British.

In fact, in a survey carried out by British Future, the NHS ranked above the monarchy and the Olympics as the institution we feel most patriotic about. And here at Nightingale, we feel similarly.

We live in challenging times with much uncertainty, yet despite the flux of recent years the public remains committed to the founding principles of the NHS - that it meet the needs of everyone, that it be free at the point of delivery and that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay. Despite all the changes since Aneurin Bevan launched our National Health Service in 1948, we still cling to that statement of values. In fact, many of us ended up working in healthcare because we support those noble ideals.

However The Nursing Times reported in May this year that despite frameworks intended to control and reduce agency spend, Health Trusts in England are still spending £1.46bn a year on agency and bank nurse shifts. And when we see money being spent - unnecessarily, in our view - on agency fees and commissions it makes us - well, pretty frustrated and angry, actually.

The NHS employs 1.7 million people across the UK. Around 140,000 of those are doctors (11%, or thereabouts) and around 300,000 of those are nurses (around 25% of the total figure). Of course, there are lots of other less-well known professions and disciplines under the NHS umbrella: healthcare scientists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists to name just a few.

Forgive us for all of the figures, but they’re important - and shocking. In 2016/17, the NHS spent £2.9 billion on agency staff. OK, so that was a reduction on the £3.6 billion that was spent in 2015/16, but still £700 million more than in 2009/10.

The profit stats of 10 biggest agencies providing healthcare professionals to the NHS were analysed, and it was found that their collective turnover had risen by 39% to 1.39 billion between 2010 and 2013. Someone’s making money out of our beloved national institution, but it isn’t the nurses or the physios.

This is why Nightingale - an online marketplace to match skills and availability to work - exists. To say no more exploitative profits. To remove the middle man. To allow employers to save up to 40% on their temporary workforce costs. To give control back to the healthcare professionals and to empower them with higher wages and increased transparency.  

There’s so much uncertainty at present, but one thing does seem to be certain: that the NHS will continue to come under increasing strain. Health Education England tells us that we need 190,000 more staff by 2027. At present, up to 8% of vacancy shifts aren’t being filled and the NHS is short of 42,000 nurses, midwives, physios and occupational therapists.

The challenge is enormous, but it’s from this challenge that the idea of Nightingale was formed: an online marketplace where healthcare professionals find the work they want with no exploitative middle men making unethical profits.

Everyone needs a values statement - Bevan’s was that the health service should be free for all, rich or poor, funded through fair taxation. Ours is simply this: #nomoreagencies.