A hospital criticised by Scottish ministers for a culture of bullying has parachuted in dozens of agency nurses to plug chronic staff shortages.
St John’s Hospital, in West Lothian, has been battling a skills crisis according to sources who claim a reputation for mistreating staff has hampered recruitment. As many as 40 agency nurses have been deployed daily to cover wards at “huge” cost to the public purse.
The use of agency staff has been raised internally with hospital management, amid claims that patient care could be compromised because temporary nurses do not have direct access to patients’ records on an NHS system known as Trak.
“Many of us believe that it is the hospital management’s reputation for bullying that is contributing to our staffing