NORMAN PROVAN

Associate director of employment relations RCN Scotland

Some investment in agency nursing will always be needed because it is vital that there are enough nurses to provide safe care for patients. Health boards will always need to call in nurses at short notice to cover sickness absence and unexpected peaks in demand.

Health boards also have to cover vacancies in the workforce and the vacancy rate is continuing to rise, up to 3.6% at the end of March this year. Historic cuts to the nursing workforce and the intake of nursing students means that while patient demand grows year-in, year-out, we now simply do not have enough nurses.

So it’s no surprise then that the bill for hiring agency nursing in NHS Scotland has soared. This clearly shows that health boards continue to struggle to fill permanent nursing posts and are having to resort to expensive agency nurses to fill the gaps.

But this trend is unsustainable. Health boards are struggling to deliver services to more and more people, with budgets which are not keeping pace with the increasing demands on the NHS and social care.

Over-reliance on agency staff can be bad for continuity of patient care and the cost to the NHS is putting extra stress on health board budgets. Nursing staff are also under pressure at work, with the vast majority feeling they do not have time to care for patients as they would like.

Given all these pressures and the rocketing cost of agency nursing to the NHS, it’s clear that Scotland cannot continue to deliver health and care services in the same way as now.

Where possible, health boards should try to convert bank and agency spend to substantive posts and look at ways of supporting staff and managing the demands put on them.

Transformational change is needed urgently and all stakeholders, including politicians, professionals and the public must be willing to put vested interests to one side and work together for a common cause – to ensure our NHS is sustainable for the future.