Scottish Labour says more than £26m spent on agency staff amid NHS 'workforce crisis'

More than £26 million has been spent within three months on agency workers to cover workforce gaps in the NHS as Scotland pays the price of "SNP failure", Scottish Labour has claimed.​

The party said that Scotland's NHS has at least 7,400 clinical vacancies and called on the country's new Health Secretary Michael Matheson to tackle the "workforce crisis" as a priority.

According to Scottish Labour analysis of data obtained via Freedom of Information (FOI), health boards spent at least £26,282,189 on agency workers between December 1 2022 and February 28 this year.

Scottish Labour has pointed the finger at the SNP over NHS 'workforce crisis'

Eight of the health boards were only able to provide data for December and January, while one could not provide data.

The analysis also found that between December 2022 and February 2023, at least 34,000 nursing shifts were covered by agency staff.

The Scottish Government said that the majority of temporary staff come from staff banks and that these are NHS employees, working on NHS terms and conditions.

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie 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. Conditions get more challenging every day and all this SNP government has to offer is soundbites.

"The new Health Secretary must prioritise tackling the workforce crisis if we are to truly see recovery in the NHS - we cannot continue to allow the people to Scotland to pay the price of SNP failure."

The Scottish Government said that the use of temporary staff in an organisation as large and complex as NHS Scotland will always be required to ensure vital service provision during times of planned and unplanned absences such as annual, maternity and sick leave.

It said that more than 35,000 nurses and 2,900 doctors are registered across NHS Scotland territorial board staff banks.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "NHS Scotland staffing is around £9 billion a year, with spending on agency nursing a tiny fraction of this.

"It is important to note that the majority of temporary staffing come from staff banks; these are NHS staff, working on NHS terms and conditions.

"We absolutely value our nursing staff and have reached historically high NHS staffing as well as investing £1 billion over two years on NHS Agenda for Change Pay which includes a recently accepted 6.5% pay rise for 2023/24."