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Spend on agency staff tops £26 million in just three months

Calls to tackle workforce crisis in Scotland as Scottish Labour reveals ‘unsustainable’ spending on agency staff including cover for 34,000 nursing shifts
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour health spokesperson said: ‘The new health secretary must prioritise tackling the workforce crisis if we are to truly see recovery in the NHS'

Calls to tackle workforce crisis in Scotland as Scottish Labour reveals ‘unsustainable’ spending on agency staff including cover for 34,000 nursing shifts

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour health spokesperson said: ‘The new health secretary must prioritise tackling the workforce crisis if we are to truly see recovery in the NHS'
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour health spokesperson Picture: Alamy

The NHS in Scotland spent more than £26 million on agency staff in three months to plug workforce gaps, according to new figures.

Calls to address staffing crisis as agency nurses cover 34,000 shifts in three months

At least 34,000 nursing shifts were covered by agency staff in the same three months, according to freedom of information data obtained by Scottish Labour.

The figures, seen by Nursing Standard, reveal health boards spent at least £26,282,189 on agency workers between December 2022 and February this year.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: ‘Our NHS will continue to face this crisis as long as staff find themselves overworked and underpaid.

‘The new health secretary must prioritise tackling the workforce crisis if we are to truly see recovery in the NHS.’

Staffing crisis continues as poor pay forces many nurses to leave

Health unions and nurses themselves have long warned that poor pay and staffing pressures in the country are forcing many out of the profession.

There are currently 5,779 nursing and midwifery vacancies in the Scottish NHS, the latest data show. This represents a slight drop in the record high of more than 6,000 vacancies recorded at the end of 2021.

However, nurses in the country are set to become the best paid in the entire UK health service after accepting an average pay rise of 6.5% for 2023-24. Scotland has been the only part of the UK to avoid nursing strikes after ministers revised their pay offer for 2022-23 and accelerated their offer for 2023-24.

RCN warn that Scotland’s agency costs are ‘unsustainable’

The RCN warned the country did not have enough nursing staff required to deliver proper care.

RCN Scotland's interim director Colin Poolman said: ‘It is no surprise that health boards are having to resort to expensive agency nurses to fill the gaps, but the level of spend is simply not sustainable. Some investment in agency nursing will always be needed to cover unexpected events and ensure safe patient care, but it is not the solution to the current workforce crisis.’

A Scottish Government spokesperson said the majority of temporary staff come from NHS staff banks.

‘NHS Scotland staffing costs about £9 billion a year, with spending on agency nursing a tiny fraction of this,’ they added.


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