NHS senior managers have spent over £350million on agency staff in just 20 months, the Sunday Mail can reveal. The eye-watering bill includes tens of millions funnelled into the pockets of private company directors who charge health boards thousands of pounds a day for doctors and nurses – and take a huge cut of the fee.
The revelation comes as Scottish hospitals face a winter of chaos after staff employed directly through the NHS voted to walk out on strike over low pay.
One nurse said: “If Health Secretary Humza Yousaf would just give us the pay we deserve, then there would be enough staff employed through the NHS and we wouldn’t need to shell out all these millions to agencies.“It is a complete scandal.
As things stand, agency owning middlemen are earning huge fortunes while we are barely being paid enough to feed our families and keep the heating on.“Yousaf is shooting himself in the foot and there is not going to be anyone there to bandage it up at this rate.” Agency staff spending of £357,229,560.57 at Scottish health boards between January 2021 and August 2022 was revealed in a freedom of information release to Labour’s Alex Rowley MSP.
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