Locum use ‘papering over cracks’ in NHS Fife, says MSP

A FIFE MSP has expressed concern after the amount of spending on NHS Fife’s use of locum medical staff “rocketed” last year.

Scottish Conservative Murdo Fraser said figures revealed that there was a year-on-year rise of 74.3 per cent in the spend on agency and bank nurses and midwives in Fife.

The total spend, he said, had rocketed from £14.6 million in the 2014/15 financial year to £32.9 million in the 2021/22 financial year.

There was also a 31.7 per cent increase in the amount which NHS Fife had to spend on locum doctors and dentists in the 2021/22 financial year.

Mr Fraser says that while locum staff played an integral role in the running of Scotland’s health service, they now highlighted the failures of the Scottish Government to address chronic staffing shortages in Fife.

“While locum doctors and agency staff, of course, have a crucial role to play in the running of our NHS, the SNP’s dire workforce planning has left NHS Fife with major staffing shortages,” he said.

“Often, this spending on locum staff is merely papering over the cracks because it indicates that permanent staff are completely overwhelmed.

“Having to shell out huge sums on locum staff, along with fees to private agencies, is not an efficient use of limited NHS resources in Fife.

“Our frontline staff in Fife are at crisis point and we need to see an urgent overhaul implemented by the SNP Health Secretary. Otherwise, precious resources will continue to be spent on a temporary solution to a growing problem.”

A spokesperson for NHS Fife said the use of locum and agency staff had increased in Fife in recent years as it had across Scotland. “There are a number of reasons for this, including an increase in staff absence due to COVID-19 and significant challenges in recruiting to some vacant medical and nursing posts,” said the spokesperson.

“We also require a larger complement of clinical staff than ever before due to the residual challenges associated with COVID and the unprecedented demand we are seeing currently.

“The safety of staff and patients remains our number one priority and it is important that we are pragmatic in how we look to tackle the existing pressures on our workforce and maintain staffing levels. This has required us to increase our use of locum and agency staff, along with our local nurse bank, to support existing staff to provide patients in Fife with good-quality, safe and effective care.”