Nicola Sturgeon quizzed over NHS staff sickness levels

Ruth Davidson said health workers were under pressure "like never before"

Scotland's Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson has asked Nicola Sturgeon what she plans to do about a seven-year high in NHS staff sickness.

The matter was raised during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood.

Ms Davidson said health workers in Scotland were under pressure "like never before".

Ms Sturgeon said it had always been a priority of health boards to "keep levels of sickness absence in the NHS to a minimum".

She added that trade unions "work very hard with health boards" to try to support staff.

'Cracks showing'

Ms Davidson told the Holyrood chamber that her party had written to health boards across the country to ask how often staffing concerns had been formally raised by doctors and nurses, stating that the answer was "in their thousands".

She said: "More patients are coming through the doors and the cracks are beginning to show in hospitals across the country.

"This week the NHS workforce statistics were published and they uncovered staff sickness levels across Scotland at a seven-year high - worst affected is the Scottish Ambulance Service where more than 7% of staff are off at any one time, that is four times the average sickness rate outside the public sector.

"It is clear that health workers are struggling to cope in an increasingly strained environment and the figures show that the problem is getting worse. What will the first minister do to help?"

Nicola Sturgeon said there were 10,500 more NHS staff now then when the SNP came to power

The politician challenged Ms Sturgeon to back her party's pledge to fund 1,000 more nurses and midwives by ending universal free prescriptions, and to promise to pass on extra health funding that arises as a result of UK government decisions.

Ms Sturgeon said the latest statistics showed there were now 10,500 more NHS staff than when the SNP came to power.

In Dumfries and Galloway, staffing is up 6.3% from September 2007, she added.

Speaking in the chamber, Ms Sturgeon said: "We will continue to ensure record funding of our health service, we will continue to ensure our record staffing numbers in our health service, and it is because of that that we have a health service now that is delivering historically low waiting times.

"Making sure that we keep levels of sickness absence in the NHS to a minimum has always been a key priority for health boards. Trade unions work very hard with health boards to try to support staff to do that.

"I think perhaps the most important thing we have done as a government is to ensure that the number of people working in our health service to deal with the rising demand for health services, because of our ageing population, is increasing."