NHS Scotland spends nearly £30m on locum psychiatrists in a year

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The NHS in Scotland spent nearly £30 million on locum psychiatrists in a year.Figures obtained by freedom of information requests showed that Scotland's 14 health boards splashed out £29,606,336.61 on locum psychiatrists in 2022/23.This was up nearly £10 million - a whole 50 per cent - from just three years previously.

The spend in the 2019/2020 financial year was £19,868,166.It comes after the Record reported earlier this month that one Scottish health board had spent £1.2m in a year on just two locum psychiatrists.The Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland said using agency locums for "the gaping wounds in NHS" is "a massively expensive patch up job that doesn’t fix the problem."Labour said "eye-watering sums of money are being wasted plugging gaps created by SNP incompetence" while the Lib Dems blamed "a long term refusal to invest in staffing and capacity".NHS Tayside spent the most on locums in 2022/23, with a bill of £6,448,655.

It was followed by NHS Grampian which spent £4,903,000 and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which spent £4,731,513.NHS Ayrshire and Arran spent nothing on locum psychiatrists, while Orkney only spent £74,149.Locum doctors generally cost the NHS more money because they are on short-term contracts.

They are often necessary to provide cover but can cost two or three times the funds that a permanent doctor would.Agency fees also drive up the cost of using locums as well as the increased hourly rate.Dr Jim Crabb, policy lead and consultant psychiatrist, Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, said: “We want to ensure that all consultant psychiatrists whether they are locum or not should meet the high standards of training set by the College.“But to fix our broken mental health system, we