Scottish Government spent £26million within three months on agency workers

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The Scottish Government has spent £26 million within three months on agency workers to cover workforce gaps in the NHS, according to figures obtained by Scottish Labour.A freedom of information request by the party also showed that more than 34,000 nursing shifts were covered by agency staff between December 2022 and February 2023.The statistics showed that NHS Lothian paid out over £6million to agencies over the three-month period.

NHS Highland spent over £3million, while NHS Fife spent £2.8million.NHS Lanarkshire paid out £5.8million on agency staff in just December and January.NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had the most nursing shifts covered, with 8,638.

This was followed by NHS Forth Valley which had 5,368. NHS Lanarkshire had 4,894 and NHS Lothian had 4,865.These figures have emerged as NHS Scotland suffers from a staffing crisis.

The service has at least 7,400 clinical vacancies.Scottish Labour said private agencies were reaping the benefits while worsening conditions and poor pay are causing people to leave the workforce.The party's health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said that the problem was caused by "decade and a half of bad choices and inaction from the SNP".She said: “This is the true cost of SNP failure.“A decade and a half of bad choices and inaction from the SNP has caused this dismal situation - one that only got worse during Humza Yousaf’s abysmal stint as Health Secretary.“While junior doctors are being balloted for strike action over pay, the Scottish taxpayer is being handed this eye-watering bill by private agencies to plug the gaps in the NHS workforce.“Our NHS will continue to face this crisis as long as staff find themselves overworked and underpaid.