A Tory MSP has blasted the Scottish Government for a "reliance" on agency staff within the NHS which saw Lanarkshire's health board fork out £41m during the last financial year.
The latest figures for 2021/22 reveal an increase of £9.6m on the previous year and £18m since 2014-15 for NHS Lanarkshire.
And Graham Simpson MSP says the statistics "sum up the gross mismanagement" of the NHS by the SNP government.
His comments come after figures from the NHS Workforce showed that over £423 million was spent on locum doctors and agency/bank nurses in 2021-22 across Scotland.
That represents a 30-per-cent increase on the previous year and was made up of a record £321 million spent on temporary nursing and midwifery staff, and a further £102m on locum doctors and dentists.
The £423 million figure was almost double what was spent on temporary staff in 2014-15.
In NHS Lanarkshire there was a year-on year 54-per-cent increase in the spend on agency nurses and midwives.
Mr Simpson says that while agency staff play an integral role in the running of Scotland’s health service, these figures highlight the failures of the SNP to address chronic staffing shortages in Lanarkshire.
He is urging SNP Health Secretary Humza Yousaf to urgently commit to an overhaul of workforce planning, otherwise the already-under-pressure health board will be forced to continue paying large sums for agency staff to plug shortages.
Mr Simpson said: “These figures highlight the SNP’s wastefulness and gross mismanagement of health services in Lanarkshire.
“While locum doctors and agency staff, of course, have a crucial role to play in the running of our NHS, the SNP’s dire workforce planning has left NHS Lanarkshire with major staffing shortages.
“Often, this spending on agency staff is merely papering over the cracks because it indicates that permanent staff are completely overwhelmed.
“Our frontline staff are at crisis point and we need to see an urgent overhaul implemented by SNP Health Secretary.
“Otherwise precious resources will continue to be spent on a temporary solution to a growing problem.”
However, SNP MSP for East Kilbride, Collette Stevenson, said: "Whilst the opposition claim there is gross-mismanagement within the NHS, we must bear in mind that total spend on agency nursing is less than one per cent of NHS spend.
"The use of temporary staff in an organisation as large and complex as NHS Scotland will always be required to ensure vital service provision during times of planned and unplanned absences such as annual, maternity and sick leave.
"Have the Tories considered that these figures will account for the disruption placed on our hard-working NHS staff who would have had to self-isolate with Covid, where temporary staff were required to maintain vital services and to care for patients?
"I’m glad, however, the Scottish Government have confirmed however that the majority of these shifts are filled from the NHS Staff Bank, on NHS contracts, with NHS rates of pay.”
Russell Coulthard, NHS Lanarkshire deputy director of acute services, said: “Agency and locum staff are sought from national contracted agencies to provide support to our staff and to ensure continuity of care and services.
“We have a duty to provide safe, high-quality and timely care to our patients.
“We only use agency or locum staff when there is an absolute clinical need as it is important these positions are filled to safeguard patient care.
“This is usually a last resort which is considered after all other options - including offering overtime and extra hours to those who work in our staff bank - cannot provide the staffing levels required. This has been challenging over the last year with increased staff absences due to the pandemic.”
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