North-east health chiefs are aiming to save millions of pounds over the next year by cutting their “worrying” dependency on non-contract staff.
Today directors from NHS Grampian will meet to discuss how to balance the board’s finances to help reach its savings target of 2.1% for the next year.
A budget steering group has earmarked a number of proposed cuts to several areas at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
These include the amount spent on hiring temporary doctors and nurses.
According to NHS Grampian board papers, over the last year a total of £1.98 million has been spent on non-contract nurses – more than twice the previous year’s total spend of £900,000.
And around £16million has been spent during the same period on locum doctors.
This includes money spent on hiring career grade and doctors in training. The figure is £6.7million more than the previous year and an increase of around 72%.
Douglas Cusine, the chairman of north-east patient’s body PACT, said he was alarmed at the number of temporary staff being hired by the health board.
Mr Cusine said: “The figures are worrying, it’s not good to have to rely on locum staff. It seems like the problem is getting worse.
“I know from one facial surgeon that I’ve spoken with that he was suspended without any reason being given, and of course there’s the case of the Queen’s surgeon Zygmunt Krukowski and his member of staff Wendy Craig, and I understand no reasons were given to them either.
“I’m not in any doubt that potential employees could be put off by these dismissals.”
The former sheriff added: “The medical profession in Scotland is much the same as the legal profession in Scotland, in that it’s fairly small, in the sense that word gets round. And when a place gets a certain reputation, people would think hard about wanting to work there.
“If, at the moment, they’re having to use agency nurses and doctors, the basic question must be to ask why they’re doing that.
“Because if they eliminate that significantly, and they’re still short of staff, then that doesn’t solve the problem.
“It’s almost as if they’re saying this is a luxury they can do without, but the whole reason they’ve brought them in is because they don’t have enough in-house staff to get the job done at the moment.”
