THE government’s pledge to cut hospital waiting times has been thrown into doubt by new figures showing a dramatic rise in nursing vacancies.

Since Jack McConnell became first minister, the number of unfilled nursing posts has more than doubled as record numbers of disenchanted nurses have left the NHS.

It is estimated that the shortage is costing the NHS in Scotland almost £250m a year. Last year, health boards spent £80m on temporary staff nurses in an attempt to make up the shortfall and safeguard patient care.

The figures, which will cause embarrassment to McConnell, suggest his pledge to recruit 12,000 nurses by 2007 will not be met.

The nursing crisis represents one of the toughest challenges facing Andy Kerr, who was appointed on Monday as the new health minister, as The Sunday Times predicted last week.

The latest statistics from the executive show that the number of nursing posts remaining unfilled for more than three months has increased by 135% since 2001, from 270 to 635, with almost 3,000 nurses quitting the Scottish NHS each year.

Meanwhile, the total number of vacancies for permanent nursing staff has risen to a five-year high of 2,085.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has seized on the figures and plans to raise the issue with the new health minister.

The RCN says the executive’s handling of the health service, which has led to growing workloads and inflexible working practices, is damaging morale.

A membership survey by the RCN last year revealed that 23% had changed jobs in the previous 12 months and almost half had changed employer. The college believes excessive workloads, the lack of career development and poor pay explain the high turnover.

James Kennedy, the director of the RCN Scotland, said: “The level of staff turnover among nurses and midwives is of real concern, especially when the NHS is crying out for more staff, as this has a direct impact on patient care.

“We believe that the increases in staff turnover, coupled with the increase in both bank and agency nursing staff costs, mirrors the increase in the nursing workload over the same period.

“This is simply not sustainable in the long term and underlines yet again that there is still much to do to solve the problems of excessive workloads for nurses in Scotland. We need to ensure that nurses, and all healthcare professionals, are rightly rewarded and valued for the work they do.”

Shona Robison, the SNP shadow health minister, said the executive’s pledge to recruit more staff had generated good publicity but meant nothing if it was unable to fill the vacant posts.

She added that the NHS had to introduce more flexible working patterns to persuade nurses to stay in the public sector rather than moving to better-paid jobs with private nursing agencies.

“We cannot keep and recruit nurses in permanent jobs if the conditions are not attractive and do not offer the flexibility that nurses can get elsewhere,” said Robison.

“Until we resolve that, billions of pounds will be wasted on agency nurses and training new staff who then don’t stay.”

She added that too many nurses routinely work extra hours without pay and that the NHS is surviving on the goodwill of its staff.

Another executive target, to hire 600 extra consultants by 2006, also looks likely to be missed. There is confusion over how the additional posts will be funded. A new pay deal for consultants is already costing health boards £13m more than forecast. In some cases, cuts have been made elsewhere to fund the wage bills, prompting massive public protests across Scotland.

The Scottish executive said it was confident it would meet its recruitment target. However, it admitted that many of the 12,000 “additional” nurses will be used to replace the thousands leaving the service each year.

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