£24M BILL AS NHS NURSING CRISIS DEEPENS
Cost of agency staff ‘spirals out of control’
SPENDING on agency nurses in Scotland’s NHS is ‘out of control’ with the cost soaring sixfold in the last five years, it was claimed yesterday.
New figures released to fury from opposition parties show the bill for temporary nurses and midwives has risen from just under £4million in 2011-12 to more than £24million in 2016-17.
Over the same period, the number of unfilled nursing and midwifery posts increased from 550 to almost 3,000 across the health service.
The SNP has persistently said it is opposed to privatisation in the NHS. But figures from the NHS Information and Statistics Division, published by Scottish Labour, reveal the amount of money being paid to private nursing agencies to plug gaps in Scotland’s crisis-hit NHS has
skyrocketed. Labour called the soaring costs ‘truly extraordinary’ and said they showed the price of Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to slash training places for nurses when she was Health Secretary.
Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar MSP said: ‘A six-fold increase in spending on agency nurses should be a wake-up call for the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon’s cuts are leaving our NHS staff over-worked, under-resourced and under-pressure.
‘Our NHS staff and patients in Scotland deserve better. Nicola Sturgeon needs to get back to the day job of fixing the mess she has made of our NHS.’
Scottish Labour undertook analysis of official NHS statistics to compile the figures .
They show spending on private nursing agencies rising from almost £4million in 2011-12 to £16million in 2014-15 and £24million in the last financial year, 2016-17, despite the SNP pledge to keep the NHS ‘in public hands’.
Private firms charge high rates for providing vital staff at short notice. Earlier this year it emerged that two Scottish health boards have paid more than £1,500 for an agency nurse to cover a single hospital shift.
But the temporary nurses earn nowhere near that figure. The agencies pay a trained nurse around £24 an hour, rising to £57.50 an hour for covering a bank holiday.
And while the average cost of NHS salaried nursing staff is around £36,000 a year, agency nursing staff cost more than twice this, at £84,000.
Last year a report by Audit Scotland warned: ‘The increasing use of temporary staff that can cost significantly more than permanent staff is putting considerable pressure on NHS boards’ budgets and does not represent value for money.’
Miss Sturgeon slashed the number of training places for nurses and midwives by nearly 300 in 2012-13, saying it was to minimise ‘the risk of oversupply and graduate unemployment’. Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘SNP ministers need to apologise for the poor decisions they have made on health and set out new initiatives to tackle the vacancies crisis.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The use of nursing agency staff is very low and in 2015-16 represented just 0.4 per cent of the nursing workforce. All NHS boards have clear action plans to reduce the use of agency staff and we are also developing regional staff banks to ensure there is a greater pool of flexible staff available.’