The cost of bringing in locum psychiatrists on emergency contracts to treat mental health patients in Scotland has soared according to new figures from BBC Scotland and The Guardian.
The amount spent on temporary mental health doctors has risen steadily over the last five years as the number of psychiatrists in permanent NHS posts has fallen.
The number of whole-time equivalent NHS psychiatrists has dropped from 781 in March 2019 to 651 in March this year.
The reliance on locums has soared in the same period. The total cost increased from £20.8m in 2019/20 to £34.8m last year.
And the cost of those employed on emergency contracts, which are significantly more expensive, rose dramatically last year to £14.7m – almost double the figure five years ago.
Commenting on the recent media stories, Dr Pavan Srireddy, Vice-Chair of RCPsych in Scotland, said:
“The figures published in the media are very stark, but sadly not surprising.
“The psychiatric workforce finds itself in an increasingly worsening situation. It is not growing sufficiently to keep pace with the well-documented rising scale of demand for services. As such, our workforce is overwhelmed and stretched to its absolute limit – leading to retention and recruitment issues.
“With a dwindling number of substantive (permanent) consultant psychiatrists, locum psychiatrists have been recruited to fill posts. But this is not a long-term solution.
“An average of one in four roles are vacant or held by locums across Scottish health boards. The implications of the current workforce shortage are deeply concerning and far reaching – for both patients and clinicians.
“Substantive consultants perform a wide range of essential tasks – from teaching future psychiatrists to developing services and leading on incident reviews.
“Locums are not always required to perform these functions and therefore do not fulfil all of the requirements of the role. This puts more pressure on our substantive postholders to carry out these functions.
“Furthermore, we’re deeply concerned that loopholes in legislation have allowed for the appointment of doctors to locum consultant titles, despite these individuals not holding all of the necessary qualifications.
“All individuals should be adequately trained and qualified. This is imperative to ensure that patients are receiving high quality treatment and care.
“Despite the multitude of issues with the growing dependence on locums, a blanket removal of agency locums would leave countless people without care and would widen inequalities.
“It’s critical that we focus on addressing the underlying issues perpetuating the workforce crisis – in particular retention: rather than focussing on the by-products of the longstanding workforce issues in psychiatry.
“We’re committed to engaging with the Scottish Government and NHS to reform the relevant services. The Scottish Government must also ringfence the promised 10% of the NHS budget for mental health and 1% for child and adolescent mental health services.”
For further information, please contact:
- Email: scotland@rcpsych.ac.uk
- Contact Name: RCPsych in Scotland
- Twitter: @rcpsychscot