The expectation and reality of bank and agency nursing.

We should all accept that temporary workers are here to stay and we should: Ensure that banks and agencies have thorough selection and pre-employment checking strategies, including professional registration and induction provision. Check what it costs to employ a particular nurse. A staffing agency will be highly profitable on a 10 per cent commission but may be charging much more. It may be cheaper to employ in-house staff on overtime. Accept that supply may not match demand and that this is not the fault of the nurses. Ensure nurses who take work outside their usual areas of expertise remember to tell other staff that they may need extra support when they arrive on duty. Ensure temporary staff are orientated to the clinical areas and are offered support by their colleagues. If and when things go wrong discuss them with clinical areas, as well as banks and agencies. It is vital that temporary staff are managed and patterns of unacceptable performance are monitored and acted upon. The growth in temporary working makes matching an increasingly difficult task and puts new challenges on monitoring performance. The effective bank or agency will offer education and appraisal and will have specific policies to ensure clinical governance. Not long ago that there were too few shifts to offer bank nurses. How things change--and how important it is for a service manager to ensure that temporary staff represent value for money and have professional integrity, and that staff realise that they are well supported. After all, they will be a value component of the workforce.