So what is your alternative solution. Leave the hospitals short staffed so that the remaining staff are run ragged?

The NHS have been employing agency staff for years. I would rather that they did not have to do that. Some staff prefer to work that way.

There are not many easy solutions. There are no quick solutions.

Between 2014 and 2016 I spent a fair amount of time in A & E departments accompanying my mother on a number of ambulance visits, so much so I thought I might get an invite to the staff xmas party. One rare quite night while waiting for hospital transport back home for my mother, i got chatting with a nurse. I said the 12 hour shifts must be hard. She said they were and tbat is why she was agency. Work a few months then take a few weeks off before returning. Quite understandable.

Of course it is probably easier for agency staff to fit in on A & E rather than a ward of longer staying patients.