Private bodies rake in huge profits from hiring local doctors to hospitals – costing the NHS more than £500 million a year

The NHS is being ‘ripped off’ by private bodies raking in huge profits by hiring doctors to hospitals, the Mail has revealed.

Fueled by a chronic recruitment crisis, health chiefs are being pushed to transfer an estimated £500 million a year to fill vacant locum positions with staff from agencies.

One agency director alone paid himself more than £1m last year, while 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 increased sixfold in just three years – that trainee doctors are being encouraged by their peers on social media to make the leap to the private sector.

Agency bosses desperate to recruit more staff are in turn 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 promised to ban the NHS from spending ‘eye-watering sums’ on temporary staff to fill 113,000 vacancies.

Campaigners said the ‘scammers’ should be ‘driven out of the city’.

An unnamed director of ID Medical Group was paid £1,134,017 in 2023. Dr. Mo Sacoor (photo) founded the company in 2002. Photos show the football-mad 85-year-old enjoying several lavish getaways, including the World Cup in Brazil

ID Medical Group Holdings posted an operating profit of £7.8m in 2023, up from £3m in 2021. One director, Adrien Faure, is married to Maria Baibakova, the daughter of a Russian billionaire. Here the couple is pictured together

Layla Moran MP, Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, said: ‘Providing adequate staff within the NHS is a serious and complex issue, but it is unacceptable that local bodies are making excessive profits from the NHS when we all know that the NHS is under enormous financial pressure.”

The Mail checked ten leading locum agencies to find out how much money was made from fees charged to the taxpayer-funded NHS.

Rather than covering the annual wages of 14,000 full-time nurses, the estimated £500 million in fees is instead boosting the profits of private companies.

The NHS already spends more than £3 billion on temporary workers such as nurses, while NHS trusts pay up to £2,000 for a single nursing shift, with strike action driving up costs further.

The health care industry has fought hard to reduce spending on temporary staff, introducing a salary cap of 150 percent of the standard salary in 2015.

But trusts can make exceptions if necessary and costs have soared during the pandemic, with expenditure now up 25 per cent on 2019/20.

Some agencies have seen their profits increase as a result.

Cook Recruitment Group, which runs National Locums, Locum People and The GP Team, reported an operating profit of £2.9m in 2024, compared to just £483,523 in 2021, a six-fold increase.

The NHS is being ‘ripped off’ by private entities raking in huge profits by hiring doctors to hospitals (file image)

Health Secretary Wes Streeting vowed to ban the NHS from spending ‘eye-watering sums’ on temporary staff to fill 113,000 vacancies

The staff have previously been rewarded with an all-expenses-paid trip to the Caribbean, where they were pictured sipping cocktails at a luxury hotel.

The business is a family affair, with directors David Cook, his brother Glenn and wife Jenny establishing the company in 2018. The highest paid director earned £152,000 last year.

But this is small change compared to the £1,134,017 paid to an unnamed ID Medical Group director in 2023.

Dr. Mo Sacoor founded the company in 2002 and, judging by his Facebook posts, has since reaped the rewards of its success.

Photos show the football-mad 85-year-old enjoying several 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 recorded an operating profit of £7.8m in 2023, up from £3m in 2021.

In January this year, the company was sold to the American company Aya Healthcare, with Dr. Sacoor left the company. Latest reports show profits falling to £6 million by 2024.

Acacium Group, the UK’s largest locum group, posted a turnover of £1.4 billion in 2023, around half of which came from UK operations.

It made a profit after tax of £3.1 million. However, this was down from £50m in 2022, with chief financial officer Thomas Richards citing the health service’s desire to ‘reduce spending on temporary staff following the end of the Covid pandemic’.

Despite falling profits, the highest-paid director still earned £341,000 last year.

One director, Adrien Faure, is married to Maria Baibakova, the daughter of a Russian billionaire, who once wrote an article for Tatler magazine about the best way to fire a clerk.

The group, which operates Thornbury Nursing Services, has previously offered doctors and nurses an extraordinary range of incentives to take up local work, fueling concerns that medics are being lured away from full-time NHS jobs only to be hired at higher costs lent out.

Incentives offered by Acacium reportedly included iPads, spa breaks worth hundreds of pounds and furniture vouchers worth £1,000.

Other agencies have tried to poach doctors by offering £5,000 Rolex watches and luxury holidays for referrals.

Streeting’s plans could see trusts banned from using agencies to plug gaps in entry-level jobs such as healthcare assistants and domestic support staff.

Agencies could also be banned from hiring medics leaving permanent jobs in the NHS.

Fueled by a chronic recruitment crisis, health chiefs are being pushed to transfer an estimated £500 million a year to fill empty locum shifts with agency staff (file image)

The Health Secretary told The Mail: ‘For too long, desperate hospitals have been forced to pay eye-watering sums of money to temporary staff, costing taxpayers billions and taking experienced staff out of the NHS. We won’t be ripping off the NHS again.’

Dennis Reed of campaign group Silver Voices congratulated the Mail on exposing the extent of the scandal.

He said: ‘It would be much more economical to run an internal NHS staff bank rather than pay these scam fees. These parasitic locum agencies need to be run out of town.”

However, he added that Mr Streeting needed to ‘provide an alternative solution for recruiting temporary staff’.

An NHS spokesperson said the health service is ‘doing everything we can to ensure every penny of taxpayers’ money is used wisely’.

Neil Carberry, of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which represents companies supplying temporary staff, has said any ban on local staff would be ‘a serious mistake’.

He added: ‘Temporary workers are essential to maintain a safe workforce and ensure services run smoothly.

‘These workers offer the flexibility that the NHS desperately needs, with many choosing this route as it offers a better work-life balance.

‘Removing this option would only put more pressure on an already under-resourced system and exacerbate staff shortages as staff lose patience with poor NHS management.’

Cook Recruitment Group referred The Mail to REC’s statement.

A spokesperson for ID Medical said its “health professionals have played an important role in times of crisis to ensure patients receive the care they need.”

He added that the group worked within price caps set by the government and ‘helped NHS trusts move away from expensive, out-of-frame agencies’.

A spokesperson for Acacium Group said it ‘provides a valuable and flexible service that helps ensure safe staffing levels’.

He added: ‘We have a proven track record of delivering both productivity improvements and cost savings across a number of major NHS trusts.’