NHS timebomb as vacancy rates soar

SNP slammed for its ‘negligent’ workforce planning

SCOTLAND’S health service is facing ‘major challenges’ when it comes to providing enough nurses and doctors to treat patients.

The Auditor General has warned of rising vacancies, staff turnover, sickness absence and spending on agency staff, as well as an ageing workforce.

Her damning assessment is the latest revelation to hit the health service.

A two-year audit has now been launched to scrutinise how the Scottish Government and NHS boards are going to tackle the crisis. But critics last night said the NHS was facing a ‘timebomb’ and blamed the failings on a decade of SNP ‘negligence’.

Last year Auditor General Caroline Gardner warned boards were ‘struggling’ to treat patients, failing to meet targets and being forced to make unprecedented savings. Yesterday, she launched the audit.

NHS staff numbers are at their highest ever level. But there are serious problems with vacancies and its ageing workforce.

The ageing population also means the NHS is dealing with ever more patients.

This winter has seen the chaos laid bare, with cancelled operations and patients treated on trolleys and in corridors.

Mrs Gardner said: ‘Major challenges lie ahead. There are growing pressures on NHS boards which are struggling to juggle service delivery and progress major reform, at the same time as managing considerable financial challenges.’

She added that the ‘key issues’ were increasing vacancy rates and spending on NHS staff, turnover and sickness absence. The overall consultant vacancy rate is 6.5 per cent but in areas such as psychotherapy and intensive care they are as high as 22 per cent and 18 per cent. Five per cent of GP posts are also vacant.

Meanwhile spending on agency staff has soared from £82million in 2012 to £175million last year.

The total staff turnover rate is 6.4 per cent, and the national sickness absence rate is 5.2 per cent compared to a target of 4 per cent.

The Audit Scotland briefing also warned of a ‘trend towards an increasingly ageing workforce’. More than a third of nurses are over 50 and the largest age group among all NHS staff is 50-54.

RCN Scotland Director Theresa Fyffe said this reflected a ‘demographic timebomb’ with vacancies going up in hard-to-fill rural areas, thus increasing spending on agency staff. She added: ‘Scotland does not have enough new nurses graduating to meet demand now, let alone in the future when so many nurses will be retiring.’

Scottish Tory health spokesman Donald Cameron laid the blame on the SNP after ten years in power.

He said: ‘The Scottish Government has been warned for years about the impact of an increasing and ageing population. Yet these warnings have been ignored, and now patients and overstretched workers are paying the price for that negligence.’

Scottish Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton branded the SNP’s record on workforce planning as ‘woeful’ and called on Health Secretary Shona Robison to explain how she would solve it.

But Miss Robison insisted NHS staff levels had risen to a record high under her Government.

She said: ‘There are now 11,500 more staff working in our NHS, with nearly 1,000 of these recruited in the last year. In the last ten years we’ve also seen a 46 per cent increase in consultants. These extra staff will ensure people all across Scotland get the high-quality NHS services that they rightly expect.

‘We are also committed to preparing our NHS workforce, with a fiveyear consecutive increase in the number of student nursing and midwifery places. The latest figures show there were almost 10,000 nurses and midwives in training in 2015.’

‘Considerable financial challenges’

AFTER a decade of tinkering, dithering and boasting about being ‘the guardians of the NHS’, the chickens are coming home to roost for the SNP.

The latest bombshell on the state of the health service has been delivered by Auditor General Caroline Gardner and it has landed fair and square on the desk of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

This latest crisis affects a fundamental element of the NHS: Providing sufficient nurses and doctors to treat patients.

And it cannot be blamed on what Labour was up to ten years ago; cannot be pinned on an uncaring Tory Government at Westminster today. And nor will the claim that, ‘Well, things are worse in the NHS in England and Wales’ do anything to reassure Scottish patients.

Yes, NHS staffing numbers are at a record level – but the demands on the service have never been greater.

The Auditor General has warned action is needed on vacancy rates, turnover rates and sickness absence.

The overall consultant vacancy rate is 6.5 per cent, but there are huge gaps in some specialties. Vacancy rates are almost 23 per cent in psychotherapy, 22 per cent in occupational medicine and 18 per cent in intensive care medicine. And ominously, 5 per cent of GP posts are also vacant.

Clearly, the old trick of hurling money at the problems has not worked. A better, more nuanced and innovative plan is required.

Is Health Secretary Shona Robison the totemic leader to bring forward the transformation? The evidence since she took over in November 2014 is that she is more part of the problem than the solution.