New figures show the “eye-watering” cost of continued reliance on NHS supplementary staffing, Scottish Labour said today.
The latest NHS Scotland workforce statistics show agency and bank staffing in 2025-26 cost £425m combined, an increase of £15m within a year.
Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Dame Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, said the costs are “draining resources” from the NHS.
She said: “A lack of workforce planning has not only piled pressure on hardworking NHS staff but wasted billions of pounds of public money.
“Every year, eye-watering sums are being spent plugging the gaps in our NHS despite the huge pressure on NHS services and public finances.
“These high costs are draining resources from overstretched frontline services.
“John Swinney and the SNP need to properly support NHS staff and deliver a real long-term workforce plan.
“It’s time to end the waste and make sure frontline NHS staff and services have the support they need.”
Overall, the use of agency nursing and midwifery staff has continued to decrease following Scottish Government restrictions on their use to exceptional circumstances only. In 2025-26, agency staffing cost £34.5m.
However, the cost of bank nursing and midwifery staff has continued to increase, reaching £391m in 2025-26 – an 11% rise compared with the year before.
The Royal College of Nursing has called on the Scottish Government to acknowledge that the nursing workforce planning tools are “not fit for purpose”.
Colin Poolman, RCN Scotland executive director, said: “These figures reveal the continued scale of supplementary staffing that is required to fill gaps in the nursing workforce across Scotland.
“Bank and agency nursing and midwifery use equated to over 7,000 WTE (whole-time equivalent) staff last year – this is equivalent to the nursing workforce of an extra medium-sized health board.
“The first debate of the parliamentary session on Scotland’s NHS will take place this week, and the Scottish Government must acknowledge that the scale of this need for supplementary staffing demonstrates that nursing workforce planning tools are not fit for purpose.”
The RCN has said the latest figures demonstrate the scale of gaps in the nursing workforce and the significant reliance on supplementary staffing.
The NHS data only covers shifts that have been filled by bank and agency staff.
This means that any shifts left unfilled or covered by existing staff doing additional hours or overtime are not included in the data.
Mr Poolman continued: “Managers will always need to fill gaps in the workforce and minimise the risk to patient care caused by unexpected absences or vacancies, or to bolster teams at times of high workloads or increased patient need.
“Undoubtedly, NHS banks or external agencies have a role to play in supplying supplementary or temporary staff on a short-term basis. However, an overreliance on supplementary staffing is not sustainable and can affect quality of care and patient safety.
“This is why we need to see investment in workforce planning, a renewed focus on delivering safe staffing and action to secure a sustainable nursing workforce to meet current and future demand.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “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 unplanned absence, sickness, and increased unforeseen activity, with the majority of spend on temporary staff directed through the NHS staff bank.
“These are NHS staff, on NHS contracts at NHS rates of pay.
“In keeping with our commitment to direct as much of our resources as possible towards frontline services, we have decreased the use of nursing and midwifery agency staff by 39% over the past year.
“This, along with additional reductions in agency usage delivered over the last two years, has allowed health boards to re-invest upwards of £116m in the delivery of the services most valued by the Scottish public.”