£300,000 plus spent in two months on plugging NHS staff gaps in Dumfries and Galloway
Labour says new health secretary Michael Matheson needs to make it his number one priority
Last updated 3rd Apr 2023
Scottish Labour is calling on the new health secretary to tackle the "workforce crisis" in the NHS after more than £26 million was spent within three months on agency staff.
Locally, £306,666.79 was spent within two months on agency workers in Dumfries and Galloway, which accounted for 202 shifts between December and January 2023.
The party said that Scotland's NHS has at least 7,400 clinical vacancies.
Labour's health and social care spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “This is the true cost of SNP failure.
“A decade and a half of bad choices and inaction from the SNP has caused this dismal situation - one that only got worse during Humza Yousaf’s abysmal stint as Health Secretary.
“While junior doctors are being balloted for strike action over pay, the Scottish taxpayer is being handed this eye-watering bill by private agencies to plugs the gaps in the NHS workforce.
'We cannot allow the people of Scotland to pay the price of SNP failure'
“Our NHS will continue to face this crisis as long as staff find themselves overworked and underpaid. Conditions get more challenging every day and all this SNP government has to offer is soundbites.
“The new Health Secretary must prioritise tackling the workforce crisis if we are to truly see recovery in the NHS – we cannot continue to allow the people to Scotland to pay the price of SNP failure."
The Scottish Government said that the use of temporary staff in an organisation as large and complex as NHS Scotland will always be required to ensure vital service provision during times of planned and unplanned absences such as annual, maternity and sick leave.
It said that more than 35,000 nurses and 2,900 doctors are registered across NHS Scotland territorial board staff banks.
The Scottish Government's view
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "NHS Scotland staffing is around £9 billion a year, with spending on agency nursing a tiny fraction of this."
"We absolutely value our nursing staff and have reached historically high NHS staffing as well as investing £1 billion over two years on NHS Agenda for Change Pay which includes a recently accepted 6.5% pay rise for 2023/24."