The number of nursing vacancies across NHS Scotland has reached a three-year high, with almost 1400 jobs unfilled.
New figures released by the health service show the number of vacancies has risen by 400 since June, prompting concern about the strain placed on the staff in post.
Nursing and midwifery workers are down by more than 2000 from a peak in September 2009.
Theresa Fyffe, director of the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, said: "Cuts to the workforce are not only bad news for patient care but mean that the remaining staff in the NHS are increasingly over-stretched, and while today's figures also show there has been a slight increase in the number of nursing staff in post over the last quarter, when taken in the wider context it is only a very small improvement."
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: "Filling these spaces would go a long way towards easing the pressure on those currently in place, and result in better care for patients."
Health Secretary Alex Neil insisted hospitals "must have the levels of staffing and skills to continue to deliver the very best quality care."
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 hereComments are closed on this article