The Scottish first minister has rejected warnings that the country’s NHS is “dangerously understaffed”.
Humza Yousaf was challenged over health service staffing during first minister’s question time in the Scottish parliament yesterday.
“Long before the pandemic we were raising these concerns on behalf of our members and patients”
Eileen McKenna
Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Alex Cole-Hamilton told Mr Yousaf that the “staffing crisis” was worsening and had been an issue “long before” Covid-19.
He said: “I wonder whether the first minister realises just how angry he makes NHS workers when he blames that crisis on the pandemic.”
Latest workforce data shows that, as of March 2023, there were more than 5,500 whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery vacancies in NHS Scotland.
Meanwhile, across 2022-23, spending on agency staff for nursing and midwifery was a record high £169.7m.
Nursing and midwifery sickness and turnover rates were also higher than any other year on record in the data set, which goes back to 2013.
Mr Cole-Hamilton said new research from his party had revealed that NHS workers in Scotland had logged concerns about short-staffing on more than 18,000 occasions in the past five years.
These reports “mean that patients are waiting in pain, wards are dangerously understaffed and NHS workers are pushed to breaking point”, he said.
He asked Mr Yousaf: “Does the first minister accept that the royal colleges are correct in their belief that, irrespective of the pandemic, neglect by Scottish ministers has left the health service in a terrible state?”
In response, Mr Yousaf said he did not agree with Mr Cole-Hamilton’s characterisation of health service staffing.
“There is no doubt that there are vacancies in the NHS, but when I look at the Scottish National Party’s record in government, I see that we have about 29,100 more full-time equivalent staff working in the NHS than we did when we first took office,” he added.
For nursing and midwifery, Mr Yousaf said staffing numbers had increased by 14% since September 2006.
Referencing the latest NHS pay deal agreed in Scotland, he added: “We have a good record on staffing, not only in numbers but because staff in Scotland are the best paid in the UK.”
However, he said there was “no doubt” that the pandemic had affected the health service in a negative way, describing it as “the biggest shock that the NHS has faced in its almost 75-year existence”.
He noted the nursing and midwifery taskforce that had been set up recently to look at recruitment and retention issues in the professions.
In a statement following the FMQs, Eileen McKenna, associate director of nursing, policy and professional practice at Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland, said: “Thousands of registered nurses and nursing support workers are missing from teams across Scotland and staff are rightly raising and logging the impact this is having on safe patient care.
“Long before the pandemic we were raising these concerns on behalf of our members and patients.”
Ms McKenna said the nursing taskforce was a chance for the government to “tackle the nursing workforce crisis and develop the sustainable nursing workforce Scotland needs”.
However, she also raised concerns that Scotland’s safe staffing legislation – Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act – was still yet to be implemented, four years after it became law.
The Scottish Government has previously said that implementation of the law, which was delayed by Covid-19, will now take place in April 2024.