NHS Forth Valley's agency staff spend set to be cut back

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Prudent NHS Forth Valley health chiefs are doubling down on the need to cut back on agency nurses as they aim to rein in their spending post-pandemic.The NHS Scotland nursing agency spend for 2023-24 is projected to be around £200million.Based on previous years, this is an “unsustainable cost for supplementary staffing,” according to the Scottish Government.This projection resulted in the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) commissioning and leading a task and finish group looking at supplementary staffing including nursing agency spend and leading the work to eradicate the use of off-framework agency nursing staff from June 1.Frances Dodd, NHS Forth Valley Chief Nursing Officer said at Tuesday’s board meeting: “We want to ensure the best value and best professional standards.“This is being done on a national approach basis, we are aligned with all the boards in Scotland.“The NHS Forth Valley escalating spend position went to significant proportions in the years of the pandemic.“Scott Urquhart, the Director of Finance and I are working together to make sure we deliver the efficiencies we can in this case whilst maintaining patient and staff safety at an absolute premium.

Click here for more news and sport from the Stirling area. “The June 1 deadline describes that we will remove all non-framework agency nurses.“We have reviewed escalating processes.“During working hours it will be me who authorises use of any non-framework nurses, or if I am not here Cathie Cowan, the Chief Executive will be.“We need to report to the Scottish Government any non-framework agency spending.“We will use non-framework agency when patient and staff safety needs to be considered.“We will need to have explored every other option like excess hours,