A librarian at the high security state hospital Carstairs was forced to help cover a shift on a ward as a recruitment shortage plunges the facility into a staffing crisis. Whistleblowers claim the failure to attract new staff to the hospital is putting current staff and patients at risk and said "it's an accident waiting to happen."
Staff said dieticians, psychologists and occupational therapists have also been drafted in to help out with ward deficits despite not being trained. Hospital chiefs have been sending urgent appeals to employees looking for volunteers for emergency on-call work which could be either helping on patient escorts outside the hospital or providing back-up when other staff are unavailable.
A source said: "Other staff disciplines working in the wards to help fill the deficit is an accident waiting to happen. We keep being told there will never be an incident like what happened in 1976 but something like that or worse is on the cards. Management say that was then and we live in a different time now and that will never happen."
