A proposed meeting between a consortium of medical locum recruiters and Baroness Vadreah, minister for small business, to discuss the removal of the VAT staff hire concession, due to take place in December, has been put on hold.

The meeting had been called to discuss what the consortium sees as the absence of a level playing field between its members and NHS professionals when supplying staff to the NHS.  The consortium believes this will be accentuated when the staff hire concession is removed in April

At the moment, under the VAT staff hire concession, recruiters supplying medical locums to the NHS only charge VAT on the commission rather than on the whole invoice.

However, under NHS rule from April NHS Professionals will continue to be exempt from charging VAT, while recruiters supplying medical locums will have to charge VAT on the full amount of the invoice, with the NHS (as now) unable to claim VAT back.

Salim Shahul, chief executive of specialist medical locums recruiter dr-locums, told Recruiter  the meeting had been delayed because December was an “incredibly busy” time of year for medical locum recruiters, and so few members had got back to him.

Shahul says he intended to hold the meeting with the minister in January.

However, he suggests that it might also prove productive for the consortium to  pursue a legal argument with HM Revenue & Customs that locum doctors are exempt for VAT in the same way as nurses. This would allow medical locum recruiters to compete on a level playing with NHS Professionals.