SKINT NHS FORKS OUT FORTUNE FOR COVER FURY AFTER NURSE PAID OVER £1200 FOR A SHIFT

MSP Smith hits out at ‘extraordinary’spending

Cash-strapped NHS Tayside was forced to pay a nurse a colossal £1273 to cover a single shift at Perth Royal Infirmary, the Perthshire Advertiser can reveal.

The sum, described yesterday as “quite extraordinary” by one Perthshire politician, was paid to an agency nurse to work an 11-hour shift at the Taymount Terrace hospital in the last year.

Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Liz Smith said the payment, revealed through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, “further underlined” recruitment problems NHS Tayside is said to be currently experiencing. The Royal College of Nursing Scotland also said yesterday such spending with agencies was “not sustainable”.

The revelation comes just a few months after it emerged NHS Tayside was projecting it would need emergency bailouts worth up to £12 million by next year after it was said to have “misrepresented” its accounts for six years as well as raided a charity fund partly to pay for a new IT system. It also comes in the same week bosses complained some patients were not turning up for appointments, costing them £151 for every one that has been missed.

Yesterday a spokesperson insisted its staff were continually working on ways to reduce its dependency on agencies, while Ms Smith (left) and her Conservative colleague Murdo Fraser MSP suggested the Scottish