New figures reveal that the NHS in Scotland has spent nearly £1 billion on agency nurses and locum doctors, highlighting the ongoing staffing crisis plaguing the health service. The reliance on temporary staff has soared since the pandemic, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of the NHS.
Taxpayers have shelled out nearly £1 billion on agency nurses and locum doctors to assist the crisis-hit NHS. The sums spent on expensive outside help have surged since the year before the pandemic struck. Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “These figures show the NHS is under huge pressure and is haemorrhaging money because of the SNP’s failure to recruit and retain frontline staff.
“After nearly 18 years of SNP incompetence, staff are demoralised and exhausted as vacancies are not being filled – and it’s costing the taxpayer millions.” Critics say staffing shortages are one of the key problems for a health service struggling to cope with soaring demand. Figures obtained by Labour show the bill to the public of plugging the gaps in care. In 2019/20, NHS boards spent £39.7m on agency nurses but by 2023/24 the cost was over £151m. NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde spent £4.7m in this area in the first year covered by the figures, but last year the total was £28.5m. NHS Lothian witnessed a rise from £4.4m to £17.2m while NHS Lanarkshire increased their spend from £2.9m to £24.7m. The highest spend of any of the five full years was £169.3m in 2022/23, with £521.2m spent by boards over the piece. In the same period, the amount spent on locum consultants soared from £64.2m a year to £95m, with the total amount since 2019 coming to £400m. NHS Fife’s outlay rose from £7.1m to £13.9m while NHS Highland’s bill soared from £6.8m to £9m Baillie said: “We will ensure that Scotland’s NHS has a 10-year workforce plan that creates domestic medical and nursing training places, values nurses, doctors and all NHS staff, and meets the needs of future generations of patients. Scotland’s NHS needs a new direction and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver it.” It comes as new figures show the worst year on record for A+E waits, with the four-hour target for treating patients missed in almost half-a-million cases. There were 497,142 occasions where patients had to wait longer than four hours in 2024. The figures were collated by the Lib Dems. The analysis also revealed a 519% increase in the number of patients spending half-a-day or more in A&E when compared to 2021. A Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'NHS Scotland’s staffing pay bill is over £10 billion a year, with spending on agency nursing a tiny fraction of this. 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 unplanned absence, sickness and increased unforeseen activity. “It is however critical that we seek to secure best value whenever we are delivering services within NHS Scotland, allowing us to maximise the impact that our investment has on the quality and availability of patient care. Accordingly, we are working with colleagues across NHS Scotland to explore how we can reduce our reliance on agency staffing.
NHS Scotland Agency Nurses Locum Doctors Staffing Crisis Healthcare Scottish Government Labour Party
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