Jackie Baillie has said the overstretched nursing workforce is struggling, as over £70m has been spent plugging gaps in staffing among nurses and midwives in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area alone.

Statistics published by the Scottish Government have revealed that for the year ending March 2021, NHS Scotland spent £236m on agency and bank nurses to plug staffing gaps.

This represented an 11.3 percent increase on the previous year and a rise of some 22.4 percent for agency staff alone.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde increased their spend on agency and bank nursing and midwifery staff from just under £60million in 2019/20 to almost £72million to the year ending April 2021 – an almost 18 percent increase.

The total spend equates to almost 1600 whole time equivalent posts in that year alone, accounting for almost a tenth of the total workforce.

A recent study from the Royal College of Nursing has shown that since 2011-12, bank nursing has increased by 58.9 percent, rising to 5,018.9 WTE in 2020-21.

This skyrocketing bill for agency and bank staff in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, which covers West Dunbartonshire, comes as over 6,600 WTE nursing and midwifery vacancies are reported across Scotland’s NHS.

Dumbarton MSP and Scottish Labour’s health and social care spokesperson, Jackie Baillie has said that this is the price to the taxpayer of the SNP’s failure to support Scotland’s nurses through proper workforce planning.

She said: “The facts are clear for all to see – the SNP’s complete failure to support our nursing workforce has led to huge gaps in staffing levels and an eyewatering bill to the public purse, notably in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area.

“Make no mistake, this is the price of SNP failure.

“Scotland’s heroic nursing workforce go above and beyond for patients every day, but they are being failed by a government unwilling to act.

“If we are to get to grips with this crisis in staffing, we need a proper plan to get the skilled nurses we need – including incentivising agency and bank nurses into the ranks of our NHS.

“Failure to act now will only lead to a soaring cost to the taxpayer and even more pressure on our overworked nursing staff.

“The time for action is long overdue.”