[Margaret Pilkington]

While I worked in the NHS, our unit did not use agency nurses.......we had our own 'bank' of nurses.
Many of the nurses worked on the 'bank' as a means of earning extra money(though they didn't get the same rates as agency nurses)......the advantage of using our own nurses was that their competencies were known.....and the other advantage was that they knew the patients they would be looking after.
This 'bank' work was done on their days off or annual leave days.

The NHS did institute a Bank of Nurses, so that the use of agency nurses ay exorbitant rates could be curtailed.
Our own(unit) nurses joined this bank of nurses, so that we could use them when the urgent need arose.
I much preferred using my own staff to cover shortfalls, for the reasons stated above.

It was always my understanding that NHS staff who worked in London, where the cost of living is higher, were paid 'London Weighting'.......they were paid more money that those of us who worked in the provinces.