The NHS is being ‘ripped off’ by private agencies raking in bumper profits from hiring out doctors to hospitals, the Mail can reveal.
Fuelled by a chronic recruitment crisis, health chiefs are being bounced into handing over an estimated £500 million a year to fill empty locum shifts with agency staff.
One agency director alone paid themselves more than £1million last year as bosses pocket around 20 per cent of the fee paid by the struggling health service.
It has become so lucrative – profits in the sector have soared six-fold in just three years – that junior doctors are being encouraged by their peers on social media to jump ship into the private sector.
Agency bosses desperate to recruit more staff are offering incentives, including iPads, spa breaks and furniture vouchers worth £1,000.
Some agencies are trying to poach doctors by offering £5,000 Rolex watches and luxury holidays for referrals.
It comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting vowed to ban the NHS from spending ‘eye-watering sums’ on temporary staff to plug 113,000 vacancies.
Campaigners said the ‘rip-off’ firms should be ‘run out of town’.
Layla Moran, chairman of the Commons health committee, said: ‘The provision of sufficient staffing throughout the NHS is a serious and complex issue, but it is unacceptable that locum agencies are making inordinate profits out of the NHS, when we all know that the NHS is under immense financial strain.’
The Mail audited ten leading locum agencies to find out how much money was being made from fees charged to the NHS.
Instead of covering the annual wage of 14,000 full-time nurses, the estimated £500 million in fees is instead boosting the profits of private firms.
The NHS is already spending more than £3 billion on temporary workers such as nurses, where NHS trusts are paying up to £2,000 for a single nursing shift.
An unnamed ID Medical Group director was paid £1,134,017 in 2023.
Dr Mo Sacoor founded the firm in 2002 and – judging by his Facebook posts – has enjoyed the fruits of its success.
Photos show the football mad 85-year-old enjoying various lavish trips to Portugal, including the Champions League Final in 2014, the World Cup in Brazil that same year, and the Caribbean.
ID Medical Group Holdings posted an operating profit of £7.8million in 2023, up from £3million in 2021.
In January this year, the business was sold to US based firm Aya Healthcare, with Dr Sacoor stepping down.
Its latest accounts show profits dropped to £6million in 2024.
Acacium Group, the largest locum group in the UK, posted revenue of £1.4billion in 2023, around half of which came from UK operations.
It had a post-tax profit of £3.1million. However, this was down from £50million in 2022.
Despite declining profits, its highest paid director still made £341,000 last year.
One director, Adrien Faure, is married to Maria Baibakova, the daughter of a Russian billionaire.
The group, which operates Thornbury Nursing Services, has previously offered doctors and nurses incentives to take up locum work.
The Government’s plans could see trusts banned from using agencies to cover gaps in entry-level jobs.
Mr Streeting told the Mail: ‘For too long desperate hospitals have been forced to pay eye-watering sums of money on temporary staff, costing the taxpayer billions, and pulling experienced staff out of the NHS.
‘We’re not going to let the NHS get ripped off any more.’
Dennis Reed, of campaign group Silver Voices, congratulated the Mail for exposing the scale of the scandal.
An NHS spokesman said the health service was ‘committed to ensuring every penny of taxpayer money is used wisely’.
A spokesman for ID Medical said its ‘healthcare workers have been integral during times of crisis to ensure patients have the care they need’.
A spokesman for Acacium Group said it offers ‘a valuable and flexible service’.