NHS trusts are paying as much as £5,200 a shift for agency doctors, figures uncovered by Labour have shown, with the party saying that low staffing levels resulted in a significant rise in the use of temporary workers last year.
In what Labour called an indication of a “desperate” staffing crisis in the health service, freedom of information requests to every English NHS trust showed they paid £3bn to agencies for staff during 2021-22, 20% more than in the previous year.
