Scottish health boards have spent more than £46 million outsourcing radiology services over the last five years, figures obtained by Scottish Labour show.
Data released to the party under freedom of information legislation showed a total of £46,276,537 was paid to private firms between 2018/19 and 2022/23.
An increase of 78% in five years has been recorded after just £6.8 million was spent in 2018/19 compared with £12.2 million in 2022/23.
Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said Scottish ministers have failed to heed previous warnings from the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) about soaring outsourcing costs amid staffing shortages.
Read More: 'Flawed and dangerous': Call for masks to be reinstated in hospitals and care homes
In 2018, the RCR said patients were “increasingly adversely impacted by radiology workforce shortages”, with services “buckling because there are simply not enough radiologists to sustain current provision”.
Ms Baillie labelled the statistics a “scandal” and urged First Minister Humza Yousaf and Health Secretary Michael Matheson to take urgent action to reduce the recruitment crisis facing the NHS.
She said: “While our NHS is stretched to breaking point, eye-watering sums of money are being handed over to private companies to plug staffing gaps.
“This is the cost of 16 years of disastrous workforce planning and financial mismanagement under the SNP.
“Experts have been sounding the alarm on this growing workforce challenges for years, but their warnings have been ignored – and things are at crisis point.
“Humza Yousaf and Health Secretary Michael Matheson need to take urgent action to address the recruitment crisis in the NHS and end this scandal.”
Figures show an increase in spending in 12 of 14 of Scotland’s regional health boards, with just Orkney and Shetland recording no outsourcing spend on radiology.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We are investing £1 billion in our NHS Recovery Plan to increase NHS capacity, reform the delivery of care, and get everyone the treatment they need as quickly as possible.
“More medical training posts were filled in 2022 than at any other year since records began in 2013 – with clinical radiology among the majority of specialties filled at 100%.
Read More: Clinically vulnerable 'treated like lepers', says former Scot Govt advisor
“The recent 6% pay increase for senior NHS staff means they remain the best-paid in the UK – with an overall minimum increase of 10.5% over the past two years.
“As with some other specialties, radiology continues to experience international shortages. To address workforce gaps, widen access, and provide opportunities for existing staff we are exploring alternative entry and progression routes to registered roles.
“We’re committed to investing a record £11 million in further domestic and international recruitment to support NHS staffing levels.
“The use of temporary staff will always be required to ensure vital service provision during times of planned and unplanned absences and the £46 million spend referred to represents less than 0.6% of £9 billion a year NHS workforce spending.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel