Scotland’s nursing workforce is "on the brink" as greater than £200m has been spent plugging gaps in staffing, Labour has stated.
The occasion hit out after figures confirmed NHS Scotland spent £236m on company and financial institution nurses to plug staffing gaps within the 12 month interval ending in March this yr.
This represented a 11.3 per cent improve on the earlier yr and an increase of some 22.4 per cent for company workers alone.
A latest research from the Royal School of Nursing has proven that since 2011-12 financial institution nursing has elevated by 58.9 per cent.
NHS banks present a pool of non permanent workers to cowl deliberate or unplanned shortfalls within the workforce together with illness absence and maternity cowl.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour's well being spokeswoman, claimed the rising prices had been a results of authorities failure to help nurses with correct workforce planning.
The MSP stated: “The info are clear for all to see – the SNP’s full failure to help our nursing workforce has led to yawning chasms in staffing ranges and an eyewatering invoice on the general public purse.
"Make no mistake, that is the value of SNP failure.
"Scotland’s heroic nursing workforce go above and past for sufferers on a regular basis, however they're being failed by a authorities unwilling to behave.
"If we're to familiarize yourself with this disaster in nurse staffing, we'd like a correct plan to get the expert nursing workers we'd like – together with incentivising company and financial institution nurses into the ranks of our NHS.
"Failure to behave now will solely result in a hovering value to the taxpayer and much more stress on our overworked nursing workers.
"The time for motion is lengthy overdue."
A Scottish Authorities spokeswoman stated: "Spend on company nursing in Scotland represents lower than one per cent of the general staffing finances with nearly all of non permanent staffing comes from the NHS Workers Financial institution – which has NHS workers on NHS contracts.
"We're absolutely conscious of the troublesome circumstances that boards and front-line workers are working in, which is why we have now labored arduous to make sure that our NHS maintains the elevated numbers of workers we’ve seen over the previous 10 consecutive years.
"Nursing and midwifery workers numbers are at document excessive ranges throughout the nation - up by 14.5 per cent.
"We've got additionally continued our long run funding in nursing and midwifery schooling, with document numbers of funded locations this tutorial yr. Scholar nurses and midwives coming into funded diploma programmes will improve for the tenth consecutive yr in 2022-23, that means pupil locations have doubled within the final decade.
"We've got additionally dedicated over £1 billion to our NHS Restoration Plan, and £300 million which was introduced final winter to help extra recruitment, which is already paying off."
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