Profits plummet at major healthcare staffing agency

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Mayday Healthcare reports fall in turnover and profits
Company supplies 7,000 agency staff across the NHS
Turnover and profit have more than halved over past two years

Turnover and profits have fallen significantly at a large supplier of agency staff to the NHS, its annual accounts have revealed.

Mayday Healthcare reported a turnover of £21.5m for the year to 30 September 2018, down from £27.7m in the previous year and £57.8m the year before that.

The accounts, published late last month, also show profit before tax falling from £7.6m in 2016 and £3m in 2017 to £1.4m in 2018.

The company, founded in 2003, supplies doctors and nurses to trusts across the NHS.

Mayday has been approached for comment.

The news comes after a sustained effort by NHS Improvement to drive down the amount providers spend on agency staff.

NHS Improvement said trusts’ agency staff spend had reduced from £3.6bn in 2016 to £2.4bn in 2018 after price caps were introduced.

However, the most recent quarterly report from NHS Improvement indicated the service was likely to miss targets for agency and bank spend.

The target for agency spend in 2018-19 was £2.2bn but a spend of £2.37bn is now expected.

Bank spend, which has increased steadily as agency spend declined, was planned at £2.8bn for the year, but is now predicted to be £3.3bn.

The NHS Improvement report said: “This continues the trend identified in 2017-18 of providers increasing use of temporary (especially bank staff) to manage workload in the face of increased unplanned demands, high levels of vacancies, sickness/absence and staff turnover.

“Because of these pressures, overall spending on bank and agency staff is up by eight per cent on the same period in 2017-18, with this increase attributable to volume increases rather than price.”

The review of business from the Mayday annual accounts read: “The directors consider the profit achieved on ordinary activities before reduction to be satisfactory, especially taking into account the further reductions in turnover due to continuing changes and challenges within the healthcare sector.”

The company supplies staff as part of the agency framework run by HealthTrust Europe, a private company based in the west Midlands.

The document showed that as of September 2018, the highest paid director at the company earned £387,000, down from £730,000 in the previous year.