The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) has defended the record of agencies in providing temporary nurses.

The REC’s director of policy and professional services, Tom Hadley’s, comments come following media reports involving nursing agency Ambition 24hours, after an incident in April that put the life of a three-year-old girl at risk.

Hadley told Recruiter that the case highlights the need for agencies to ensure that staff they provide have the right skills and training.

However, he adds: “The reality is that agencies provide hundreds of thousands of nurses a year, and the vast majority get it right.”

Hadley adds that it is important that there is good two-way communication between hospitals and other users, and agencies. This is a two-way process, he says, and breakdowns in communication “aren’t always the agency’s fault”.

Recruiter understands that Ambition 24hours has now been issued with an improvement notice that requires it to strengthen its recruitment procedures and to provide better training and supervision for its staff working in some specialist areas.

Concerns about Ambition 24hours were first raised last year after a BBC television programme Inside Out obtained footage of Wiltshire man Jamie Merrett having his life support machine switched off by an agency nurse.

A spokesperson for Ambition 24hours told Recruiter that he couldn’t comment on the current case because of patient and client confidentiality. However, he says, “client safety is the firm’s highest priority”. Ambition had made considerable investment in its ICT management systems for compliance and in staff training, and management of its staff, and would continue to do so, he adds. 

Elsewhere, the Health Select Committee has published its report on the Revalidation of Doctors, which calls for the focus for most doctors to be a commitment to practice improvement. The Committee further adds that the need to identify inadequate and potentially dangerous doctors must not be overlooked or diminished in the general move to use revalidation to eliminate unsatisfactory practice and improve overall performance.

Hadley says: “The Health Committee is right to highlight the need for robust checks. The revalidation process must provide clear guidance and empower responsible officers to take action when quality of care is compromised.

“Professional recruiters already play a key role in promoting safe recruitment through the effective vetting and placing of temporary and locum staff. The REC has consistently argued that protecting vulnerable groups should be the overriding concern when implementing new revalidation measures.

“At the same time … wider reforms to the healthcare system are also creating a lack of clarity as to how the accountability process would operate. The Department of Health must work with the GMC to ensure that these rules are clearly laid out, preventing confusion from impeding the implementation process.”