New figures have revealed NHS spending on agency nurses in Scotland has risen six-fold in just five years.
In 2010/11, health boards spent a total of just under £4million on agency nurses – but that number sky-rocketed to more than £24million by 2016/17.
Yet in the same period, the number of nursing and midwifery posts being unfilled increased from 550 to almost 3,000.
These figures show the price of Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to slash training places for nurses when she was Health Secretary and the price of a decade of mismanagement of our NHS by the SNP.
A six-fold increase in spending on agency nurses should be a wake-up call for the SNP.
Nicola Sturgeon's cuts are leaving our NHS staff over-worked, under-resourced and under-pressure.
Nicola Sturgeon needs to get back to the day job of fixing the mess she has made of our NHS.
Our NHS staff and patients in Scotland deserve better.
Labour would do things differently.
We would massively increase the money available to be spent on our health service.
We would end the increasing privitisation of our NHS from the SNP.
Only Labour can create a health service as it was originally intended to be – for the many, not the few.
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