Scottish health board spends 'eye-watering' £2m on locum psychiatrists in a year
A Scottish health board spent an "eye-watering" more than £2 million on locum psychiatrists last year.
NHS Highland spent £2.1m on the stand in doctors in 2024 - up from £1.9m the year before.
Labour said the spend was "a direct result of the SNP's woeful lack of workforce planning and failure to support rural health boards."
The Lib Dems called for the Scottish Government to "end its shambolic approach to workforce planning and increase the number of consultant psychiatrists in training to plug these gaps."
The health board paid an average £100,000 to the 21 locum psychiatrists it employed last year.
The £2.1m spent was up from 2023, but was down from the 2022 figure of £2.2m. Before that its spend was about £1.2m per year.
Locum doctors generally cost the NHS more money because they are on short-term contracts. They are often necessary to provide cover but can cost two or three times the funds that a permanent doctor would.
Agency fees also drive up the cost of using locums as well as the increased hourly rate.
Scottish Labour Health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said "These eye-watering costs will starve local NHS services of resources they badly need.
"This is a direct result of the SNP's woeful lack of workforce planning and failure to support rural health boards.
"Once again taxpayers are paying the price for SNP incompetence.
"Our NHS is on life support as a result of SNP mismanagement and waste - it's time for a new direction."
Lib Dem MP Wendy Chamberlain said: 'There is a dangerous staffing crisis within NHS mental health services, with vacancies at particularly high levels in rural and remote parts of the country.
"Scottish Liberal Democrat research has previously revealed that 1 in 5 senior mental health roles are either lying empty or being filled on a temporary basis. That means longer waits for patients and vast amounts of money being spent on staff to try and plug gaps.
'The SNP Government needs to end its shambolic approach to workforce planning and increase the number of consultant psychiatrists in training to plug these gaps."
A spokesperson for NHS Highland said: "NHS Highland's priority is to deliver safe, high-quality, and person-centred mental health care and services.
"The reliance on locum staff highlights the psychiatric national workforce crisis.
"In response to meeting the needs of our patients, we put every effort into coordinating both in-person and virtual appointments through our network of clinicians within the board's area."
Mental Wellbeing Minister Tom Arthur said:
'We have record numbers of staff, providing more varied mental health support and services to a larger number of people than ever before. We have exceeded our commitment to recruit 800 additional Mental Health Workers to A&Es, GP practices, police station custody suites, and prisons.
'We are supporting NHS Boards to plan locally for service need and delivery. This has been supplemented by substantial investment in our future consultant workforce and the creation of several additional training places in psychiatry.'
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