HOSPITALS in Scotland have paid more than £1,500 per shift for agency nurses to cover staffing rotas, new figures reveal.

Details released under freedom of information showed that NHS Lanarkshire paid £1,565 to an agency for a single shift in 2015-16.

Meanwhile, NHS Lothian said the largest amount it had paid for a single shift in the last three years was £1,528 in 2014-15.

Bosses at NHS Tayside paid £1,251 for a shift in 2015-16, while NHS Ayrshire and Arran estimated the highest single payment it had made between 2013-14 and 2015-16 was between £1,300 and £1,600.

Tory health spokesman Donald Cameron said the figures were obtained by his party that most NHS boards had refused to reveal the largest amount paid to cover a single nursing shift.

Using agency and bank staff cost health boards across Scotland a total of £158 million in 2015-16.

He said: “Bank and agency nurses play an important role when it comes to helping plug gaps in the NHS.

“But demands of more than £1,500 for a single shift are an abuse, and one health boards should not bow to.”

Health Secretary Shona Robison said the overall bill for agency nurses and midwives was more than 11 per cent lower than it was 10 years ago.

Robison stated: “Bank and agency staff are an important part of our staffing arrangements to allow health boards to cope with peaks in demand.

“Boards only use bank and agency staff when they have to, and the vast majority are the board’s own nursing staff.”

She added that a record number of people currently work within the NHS in Scotland, with 99.6 per cent of all care delivered by NHS staff.

“This includes more than 43,100 qualified nurses and midwives, an increase of more than 2,100 since this government took office,” she said.