It states that high levels of workforce vacancies in nursing have led to increased expenditure on temporary staff with a 93% rise in the cost of bank and agency nursing staff since 2017. It refers to the RCN鈥檚 2022 survey on staffing levels which found that 86% of nurses in Scotland thought that the number of nursing staff in their last shift was not sufficient to meet the needs of patients safely and effectively.
conclusions include calls on the Scottish Government and NHS boards to focus on staff retention, as well as recruitment, and urgently complete work on modelling demand and capacity in the NHS in Scotland to inform planning for future service delivery. It also calls on the Scottish Government to be more transparent on progress towards service recovery.
Audit Scotland also states that 鈥渢he proposed National Care Service will place a huge strain on the health and social care budget鈥�, with the current plans representing 鈥渁 significant unknown financial commitment鈥�. This week RCN Scotland wrote to the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, Kevin Stewart MSP, calling for the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill to be paused and for the Scottish Government to take more time to adequately consider and co-design the details of these plans with stakeholders, in advance of legislating.
Colin Poolman, Director, 天美传媒 Scotland said: 鈥淭his report is clear that tackling the workforce crisis is key for NHS recovery. We need effective workforce planning that is based on population need, implementation of Scotland鈥檚 safe staffing legislation and fair pay that truly reflects the safety critical role that nursing staff play.
鈥淲e are calling for a Nursing Retention Strategy for Scotland that sets out a plan to tackle the exodus of nursing staff from our profession 鈥� this must be a priority for Scottish Government鈥檚 new Nursing Taskforce.
鈥淲e completely agree that there also needs to be an open and honest discussion about the ongoing level of investment, and new ways of working, that will be required to meet the growing demands on Scotland鈥檚 health and care services.鈥�
