A Plaid Cymru MS has described a health board’s agency costs as “eyewatering” after it was revealed that it was currently spending more than £3 million a month on agencies.
Betsi Cadwaladr health board’s agency expenditure totalled £67.5 million in 2023/24. This figure has since reduced to £36.6m in 2025/26
Marc Jones, Plaid Cymru MS for Fflint-Wrecsam, said: “I raised concerns about the cost of paying agencies at a recent meeting with the health board’s leadership. They have now supplied me with the detail I required and the numbers are staggering.
“Agency costs have reduced from an astounding £5.6m a month in 2023/4 to £3m a month in 2025/6 – an eyewatering £36.6m a year.
“While any reduction is welcome, this is still a significant amount of money not being spent on permanent frontline services and staff. I think we can do better because every penny going to agencies that provide these nurses and allied healthcare professionals means less money to spend on frontline staff. We have nurses and other health professionals graduating from Welsh Universities without guarantee of jobs – we have to ensure these new graduates can join the staff of our health board so we can improve the care for patients.
“I also understand that inflexible nurse rotas can mean that agency working is the only option for some nurses and would urge the health board to engage with unions to discuss how to create more flexible working conditions to ensure retention of staff rather than paying expensive agency rates.”
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