LABOUR REVEALS HEALTH BOARDS SPEND OVER £45 MILLION ON TAXIS

By Lucy Ashton

Scotland’s hard-pressed health boards have spent over £40m on taxi services in the past six years, Scottish Labour can reveal today.

Statistics obtained by Scottish Labour have shown that between 2018 and the start of this year, some £45,713,178 was spent by Scotland’s health boards on taxis for a variety of reasons.

While the need for taxi services is greater in rural communities, NHS Lothian racked up a taxi bill of almost £9 million, whilst NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spent nearly £8 million.

A breakdown of the reasons for the use of taxis is especially alarming. In the last five years, according to Labour.

For example, £3.8 million was spent by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian transporting staff.

More striking, together both boards have spent around £4 million on ferrying medical equipment, drugs, patients’ notes, bloods and specimens and even laundry.

Scottish Labour is today calling on the SNP government to do what it can to support hard-pressed health boards so that unnecessary and expensive spend on taxis is ended.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie, left, said: “With Scotland’s NHS under severe pressure thanks to savage SNP cuts, eyebrows will rightly be raised over the amount of money being spent on taxi services.

“While taxi journeys will be necessary in some circumstances, and patient safety should always be paramount, we cannot allow the costly use of private transportation to paper over the cracks of SNP under-investment and mismanagement.

“NHS services are under increasing strain and the failure of the SNP to address the workforce challenges, especially in rural areas, means that the cost of transporting patients will keep increasing.

“While the SNP continually fail our NHS, Scottish Labour will always put the NHS and those it serves first.”

Hospitals in the local health board area to which staff and services takes taxis.

Table 1: Health Board expenditure on taxi journeys

Health Board*	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24 (YTD)	TOTAL
Health Board*	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	TOTAL
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	£ 661,784.00	£ 622,827.41	£ 728,727.57	£ 854,508.41	£ 924,365.49	£ 900,098.61	£ 4,692,311.49
NHS Borders	£ 250,810.00	£ 233,672.00	£ 240,623.00	£ 302,669.00	£ 486,259.00	£ 332,282.00	£ 1,846,315.00
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	N/A	£ 292,000.00	£ 361,000.00	£ 393,000.00	£ 457,000.00	£ 327,000.00	£ 1,830,000.00
NHS Fife	£ 356,569.00	£ 306,371.00	£ 319,270.00	£ 368,534.00	£ 441,033.00	N/A	£ 1,791,777.00
NHS Grampian	£ 688,000.00	£ 661,000.00	£ 643,000.00	£ 640,000.00	£ 971,000.00	£ 737,000.00	£ 4,340,000.00
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	£1,207,502.75	£1,216,563.57	£1,364,724.47	£1,440,178.13	£ 1,708,206.62	£ 926,389.89	£ 7,863,565.43
NHS Highland	£1,369,830.00	£1,583,749.00	£ 771,102.00	£1,659,347.00	£ 2,044,064.00	N/A	£ 7,428,092.00
NHS Lanarkshire	£ 534,169.00	£ 666,083.00	£ 616,125.00	£ 740,016.00	£ 855,290.00	£ 473,764.00	£ 3,885,447.00
NHS Lothian	N/A	£1,459,675.61	£1,585,747.36	£2,114,093.07	£ 2,397,161.25	£1,396,544.27	£ 8,953,221.56
NHS Orkney	£ 13,980.00	£ 15,659.00	£ 16,563.00	£ 33,138.00	£ 30,633.00	N/A	£ 109,973.00
NHS Shetland	£ 68,395.00	£ 53,737.00	£ 41,008.00	£ 49,657.00	£ 67,980.00	N/A	£ 280,777.00
NHS Tayside	£ 424,143.00	£ 332,048.00	£ 321,862.00	£ 447,309.00	£ 415,295.00	£ 203,258.00	£ 2,143,915.00
NHS Western Isles	£ 72,731.00	£ 72,674.88	£ 119,546.47	£ 108,547.91	£ 114,454.81	£ 59,828.65	£ 547,783.72
TOTAL	£5,647,913.75	£7,516,060.47	£7,129,298.87	£9,150,997.52	£10,912,742.17	£5,356,165.42	£ 45,713,178.20

Table 2: NHS GGC expenditure on taxi journeys*

Health Board	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24	TOTAL
Health Board	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24	TOTAL
Staff	£ 413,016.36	£ 356,561.81	£ 405,546.75	£ 532,814.70	£ 262,759.58	£ 1,970,699.20
Sample	£ 153,024.48	£ 336,808.81	£ 326,675.75	£ 256,975.92	£ 122,575.91	£ 1,196,060.87
Blood	£ 43,801.12	£ 32,569.86	£ 46,125.30	£ 64,117.52	£ 38,443.23	£ 225,057.03
Case notes	£ 21,280.46	£ 15,001.85	£ 16,986.26	£ 20,008.29	£ 11,861.93	£ 85,138.79
Package – equipment	£ 50,365.66	£ 99,492.52	£ 89,271.99	£ 108,968.32	£ 59,520.23	£ 407,618.72
SNBTS	£ 12,434.90	£ 20,325.60	£ 19,454.05	£ 24,648.29	£ 14,353.38	£ 91,216.22
Prescription/ Medicine	N/A	£ 16,037.17	£ 32,251.41	£ 49,095.27	£ 33,034.50	£ 130,418.35
Letter/ Documents	N/A	£ 5,904.04	£ 8,270.06	£ 9,565.76	£ 6,463.33	£ 30,203.19
Laundry/ Linen	N/A	£ 3,758.10	£ 2,169.30	£ 1,354.35	£ 231.80	£ 7,513.55
TOTAL	£ 693,922.98	£ 886,459.76	£ 946,750.87	£ 1,067,548.42	£ 549,243.89	£ 4,143,925.92

Table 3: NHS Lothian expenditure on taxi journeys*

	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24	TOTAL
CA Case notes	£ 10,508.61	£ 4,406.92	£ 9,774.45	£ 13,129.40	£ 9,564.05	£ 47,383.43
Drugs	£ 83,728.38	£ 70,613.87	£136,176.98	£194,394.20	£ 89,223.05	£ 574,136.48
Equipment	£ 42,028.13	£ 34,541.87	£ 50,674.06	£ 64,752.38	£ 40,105.45	£ 232,101.89
Specimens	£155,548.16	£146,870.99	£205,785.18	£230,740.54	£153,779.15	£ 892,724.02
Staff	£369,881.29	£276,082.93	£406,238.03	£467,908.15	£309,915.71	£ 1,830,026.11
Units of Blood	£ 4,812.50	£ 4,892.98	£ 5,108.92	£ 13,339.91	£ 9,280.50	£ 37,434.81
X-Ray	£ 39.62	£ 40.85	£ 200.50	£ 35.75	£ 39.75	£ 356.47
TOTAL	£666,546.69	£537,450.41	£813,958.12	£984,300.33	£611,907.66	£ 3,614,163.21