Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
NHS boss defends outlay to fill gaps
there should be the expectation that agency staff should be used sparingly, but it appears that this is the case on the majority of occasions.
“Agency spending accounts for less than half a per cent of the nursing workforce in Lanarkshire.
“It is true to say that there has been an increase in vacancies for nursing and midwifery positions, but this is as a direct result of the additional funding from the Scottish Government to create more positions.
“The number of nurses and midwives have increased by almost 10 per cent in Lanarkshire, with health spending going up by 27 per cent under the SNP.
“Our hard-working, excellent NHS staff are still human and will not always be able to attend their work.
“Agency cover is something that must be available to those running our health service in Lanarkshire.”
Airdrie MSP Alex Neil said: “We need to pay our nurses employed by the health service salaries which make up for the reduction in income caused by the austerity of the last 10 years.
“We will only be able to recruit and retain enough nurses when the pay gets a lot better; that is the best way of reducing our reliance on agency nurses.
“We also need to ensure that agency nurses don’t get a higher hourly rate than permanent members of our nursing staff.”
Philip Coghill, senior officer for the RCN, said: “We know NHS Lanarkshire continues to struggle to fill highlyspecialist nursing posts and is having to resort to expensive agency nurses.
“While some investment in agency nursing will always be needed to cover unexpected events like sickness absence to ensure safe patient care, health boards cannot continue to ratchet up spending on agency nurses.
“This is not sustainable and the lack of continuity for teams can impact on the quality of patient care and on staff morale.
“The Scottish Government has the opportunity to address these workload challenges with its proposed safe staffing legislation, safeguarding nursing in Scotland for the future.”
Ian Bunting
Health bosses have defended their spending on agency staff – but say they only recruit such roles when there is“an absolute clinical need”.
NHS Lanarkshire responded after it emerged University Hospital Monklands spent more than £3million on agency staff in the 2016-17 financial year.
Heather Knox, director of acute services for the health board, told the Advertiser:“We have a duty to provide safe, high-quality and timely care to our patients.
“We only use agency staff when there is an absolute clinical need as it is important these positions are filled to safeguard patient care.
“This is usually a last resort which is considered after all other options – including offering overtime and extra hours to those who work in our staff bank – cannot provide the staffing levels required.
“Agency staff are sought from national contracted agencies to provide support to our staff and can be used to cover sickness absence and, on occasion, other types of unplanned absence, to ensure the continuity of care and
services.”