A troubled north-east health board has spent nearly £4million since May on temporary doctors – about 60% of the total bill for last year.
NHS Grampian’s bill for locum doctors in the first five months of the financial year was £3,942,181.
By comparison, the health board paid out paid out £6,618,431 to cover staff shortages during the whole of 2013/14.
Yesterday, a health watchdog warned costs had to be kept in check, but acknowledged the temporary staff may have had to be brought in to “run services safely” due to staffing shortages.
Dr Jean Turner, executive director of the Scottish Patients Association, said: “All that money could have been spent on core staff.
“It’s not wasted money – but you pay more for locums.”
The biggest spending was on radiology at £448,801, followed by neo-natal services (£438,507) and mental health (£403,616).
Other major bills were incurred in orthopaedics, general surgery, general medicine and anaesthetics.
North East Labour MSP Richard Baker, who has been calling for more funding for the health board, said: “This shows the extent of the recruitment crisis in NHS Grampian and the desperate need to recruit more permanent medical staff.”
Last month, Mr Baker accused the health board of going to “ludicrous lengths” to ensure safe levels of cover at its flagship hospital after it emerged that NHS bosses had flown a hospital consultant in from Jamaica to tackle the ongoing staffing crisis at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI).
The temporary cover had to be arranged as the hospital was left without a top anaesthetist.
Figures show that the health board paid £1,535 for the consultant’s return flight from Kingston to Aberdeen in June.
It follows a similar arrangement in August, when NHS Grampian paid more than £2,175 to fly in a consultant from India to cover a weekend shift in accident and emergency.
An NHS Grampian spokeswoman said last night: “Due to the challenges around recruitment, where there are particular issues in Grampian, the level of locum expenditure has increased over the last two financial years.”
A Scottish Government spokesman added: “Under this government, staffing levels at NHS Grampian have increased by 3.6% and we have also ensured that after years of historic under-funding, NHS Grampian’s share of national NHS funding has increased from 9.1% to 9.6% under this government.”