[UK] Nursing agency’s £43m NHS payday [owned by Cayman Islands company]
By John Stevens and Lucy Elkins and Rosie Taylor for the DAILY MAIL
Mail investigation finds firm billed cash-strapped hospitals as much as £1,800 a shift to plug gap in staffing shortages
A nursing agency last year charged the NHS £43million to supply staff
Thornbury Nursing Services raked in £6.5m from individual hospital trusts
Mail investigation shows huge amount agencies are making from taxpayers
A nursing agency once owned by an offshore company in the Cayman Islands charged the NHS £43million last year to supply staff.
Thornbury Nursing Services raked in up to £6.5million from individual hospital trusts, billing them for as much as £1,800 a shift.
Last week Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the NHS it must cut its soaring bill for agency staff, warning: ‘Expensive staffing agencies are quite simply ripping off the NHS.’
But research from 126 NHS trusts – two thirds of those in the UK – revealed some hospitals are spending more than £20million a year on agency nurses to plug staffing gaps.
Meanwhile, last year four agencies charged the NHS £88million for nurses alone. The figures are revealed by Freedom of Information requests sent to hospital trusts by the Mail. London North West Healthcare NHS Trust spent £25million solely on agency nurse cover last year, while Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust spent £20million.
Barts Health NHS Trust in London spent £80million on agency nurses and doctors – and while it refused to disclose the breakdown, it admitted using agencies for more than 220,000 nursing shifts.
Seven trusts said they’d had to pay an agency more than £1,000 for a single shift, with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust paying Thornbury Nursing Service £1,800.
The investigation revealed the astonishing amounts that agencies are making from the taxpayer. Trusts were asked how much they paid agencies.
Thornbury Nursing Services was paid in excess of £43million for nursing cover in 54 hospital trusts in the financial year to March, although the true figure could be higher as not all trusts responded.
One trust, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in North Wales, paid Thornbury £6.5million for nursing cover. Thornbury boasts on its website that it charges ‘the best market pay rates’.
The firm was founded by former nurse Moira Sloss and her husband in 1983, and became part of Independent Clinical Services (ICS), which they sold for £66million in 2002.
Richard MacMillan, the chief executive of ICS, owns a home worth £1.1million in Ringwood, Hampshire, while its chairman Paul Pindar lives in a £14.2million London townhouse.
ICS chairman Paul Pindar lives in a £14.2million townhouse
ICS declared an operating profit of £26million on turnover of £314million in its latest accounts, filed in December 2013. They show that the company was held by a partnership in the Cayman Islands at the address of financial services firm Intertrust. The Intertrust website explains to potential clients that ‘the Cayman Islands have a strong reputation for … tax advantages.’ There is no suggestion ICS used the partnership to avoid paying tax.
American private equity firm TowerBrook acquired ICS in June 2014. At this stage it is understood the partnership in the Cayman Islands ceased to be the parent company.
Mayday Healthcare plc took more than £26million from 53 trusts last year. Medacs Healthcare received over £9million from 37 hospital trusts, while Imperial Medical Staffing raked in more than £4.8million from 18 trusts. The NHS pays on average £70,000 to train a nurse – and now it is having to pay exorbitant amounts to employ them. Yet many trusts then place restrictions on what agency staff are allowed to do.
For example, The Heart of England Trust, which spent over £13million last year on agency staff, does not allow agency nurses to administer intravenous medication.
This can create tension between staff and agency nurses. One NHS nurse told the Mail: ‘It creates issues as the employed staff are doing more but for less money than the agency nurse.’
Dr Peter Carter, of the Royal College of Nursing, says ‘too many’ staff are making the financial decision to take on agency work ‘because the NHS is not paying them enough to make ends meet’.
In 2014 the NHS employed 377,191 qualified nurses – over 18,000 more than it did ten years before. However, the number of places for training nurses has been reduced.
Medacs said it would not be making ‘any public comment’ at this time. ICS and its private equity owner TowerBrook did not respond to a request for comment.
IMAGES:
A nursing agency charged the NHS £43million last year to supply staff and charged trusts as much as £1,800 a shift, it can be revealed. File image used
Richard MacMillan (right), the chief executive of ICS, owns a home worth £1.1million while its chairman Paul Pindar (left) lives in a £14.2million townhouse
