Around 4.5 per cent of nursing positions in the NHS are currently unfilled, a rise of almost one per cent in the space of a year.
It means there is a shortage of 2818 nurses north of the border, something the Scottish Conservatives have blamed on “shambolic” workforce planning by the SNP since it took control of the health brief in 2007.
Today’s ISD Scotland figures also show a rise in consultant vacancies, now up to 7.4 per cent.
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Donald Cameron said:
“These figures show Scotland’s NHS is being starved of almost 3000 nurses.
“And it’s the SNP’s shambolic approach to workforce planning over the last decade that’s to blame for this.
“The nationalists cannot point the finger at anyone else – they’ve been warned repeatedly about not training enough nurses, and now those fears are playing out.
“Not only does this have negative consequences for patients, it means those nurses left have considerable slack to pick up.
“In many cases, the only option for health boards is to spend tens of millions on agency and bank nurses to try and paper over these cracks.
“This revelation comes hot on the heels of news last week that more than one in four GP practices have a vacancy.
“Yet again, we see the impact of an SNP government which places independence at the centre of everything, to the cost of our critical public services like the NHS