To ask the Minister of Health to detail any targets he has set to reduce the (i) dependence on; and (ii) spend on, agency nurses across the health service.

HSC Trust expenditure on agency staff is incurred to ensure that safe and effective services can be sustained. Agency use is very much the last resort once substantive staffing; overtime and the use of bank staffing have been exhausted.

A Regional Agency Reduction Implementation and Planning Group (ARIG) has been established to co-ordinate the improvement of staff utilisation, with the express objective of significantly reducing unsustainable agency and locum spend across HSC.

The Group has developed and is implementing a complex work programme to safely facilitate and manage the impact on services to deliver against this objective.

It should be noted progress has already been made:

expenditure of ‘off-framework’ agency for the nursing group (including support staff) reducing by £120m against the base year 2022/23;

agency use in Social Work has been entirely eliminated;

a new framework aimed at reducing medical & dental locum costs came into effect at the start of March 2026;

progress has been made to stabilise and grow the HSC workforce with a 19.5% increase in whole time equivalent staff directly employed since 2018 including 3,257 (+21.6%) more registered nurses and midwives;

agency costs for the nursing group (including support staff) have reduced from a high of £186m in 2022-23 (with only 28% being on-framework) to £161.6m in 2024/25 (now with 91% being on-framework);

Final expenditure data for the 2025/26 financial year is currently being collated and validated by the HSC Trusts and will be available shortly.