Bank cuts: NHS trusts accused of failing to challenge spending limits

So I did quite a lot of work in kind of trying to collectivise people within those trusts, speak to people around the issues and discover what those issues were.

I guess with a key principle of finding out how widely felt they were, how deeply felt they were, and actually could we find a way forward with staff.

So there's a number of trusts that I look after, so to speak, that I'm doing that work within currently as well.

And obviously, you know, you've seen our data, you've seen the investigation that we've put out.

You know, our investigation found that there were something like over 90,000 fewer bank shifts overall between from October to December 2023 to October to December 2025.

We measured the data at a point in time over those two years.

And we found that there were 90,000 fewer shifts overall available on the bank, but the proportion of shifts being offered out at band five had gone up quite significantly.

And so what do you make of our data and what was your sort of reaction to this when you saw it?

From my point of view, there's another dimension to that, worries me and that's the proportion of shifts which actually go unfilled completely and we know that staff are regularly reporting that they are understaffed or that they come to work where they have staffing at what they would consider a minimal level and then staff are deployed elsewhere to cover short-term vacancies which means they then become below the safe level so what we're seeing is that Overall, temporary staffing is being driven down, but at the same time, sickness absence rates and other causes of temporary staffing need are remaining high, and in the North West, the highest in England.

At the same time, staff are being deployed to areas that are not their area of clinical skill and familiarity, which is stressful and disorientating and upsetting, and also often being deployed to areas where there are, for example, corridor care going on, temporary escalation areas, patients being looked after in areas they shouldn't be, which is distressing and morally injurious for nurses.

So this cocktail of pressures... is then driving the sickness absence rate and it's just a negative spiral in terms of safety and patient and staff experience we also know that staff are being paid now less for doing those additional shifts than they used to be so areas where you need experienced nurses with specialist skills, they are being forced to put those shifts out at a band five level.

And not only that, but at the middle point of band five, which is to enter it with a nurse with maybe less than three years experience.

So actually, it's inconsistent with what we know is the benchmark for registered nurses, which is that band six job profile.

So none of it makes sense, either from a safety point of view or from a looking after your staff point of view.

Yeah.