Unions have demanded action from the Scottish Government to halt an “exodus of nursing staff” after new figures showed a 13 per cent rise in the number of employees leaving the profession.

A total of 2,690 nurses in Scotland left in the 12 months to September 2022, coming off the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register.

This was 314 more than in the previous 12 months, with Scotland seeing a higher increase in nurses leaving the profession than the seven per cent rise recorded in Wales, or the rises of four per cent and three per cenr in England and Northern Ireland, respectively.

Meanwhile, there are more than 4,600 vacant registered nursing posts in the NHS in Scotland – meaning approximately 10% of all posts across the country are empty.

RCN Scotland director Colin Poolman said the number of nurses quitting showed the “dire state that ministers have allowed nursing to fall into”.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Politics Matters