Plans to tackle damaging workforce gaps and reduce excessive waiting lists in Scotland’s NHS are “doomed to fail” unless the true extent of vacancies for senior doctors is acknowledged, BMA Scotland has warned today.
 
The BMA’s annual FOI request to Scotland’s health boards has once again exposed a huge disparity between official recorded consultant vacancies and the reality on the ground, with the actual figure over 2.5 times the official statistics.
 
The figures obtained through our FOI show a total of 1,165 WTE consultant vacancies across health boards in Scotland, with a vacancy rate of 16.8%.
 
However, according to the statistics published by NES for the equivalent period (Sept 2025), there were 447 WTE consultant vacancies, with a rate of 6.7%.
 
These figures show the vacancy rate to be more than double that of what is being officially recorded, highlighting how under-doctored Scotland remains and why many medical professionals are facing burnout and patients facing excessively long waits for treatment.
 
The FOI data also shows:

• Hundreds of consultant vacancies exist in some of the country’s biggest health boards, including Lanarkshire (180), Lothian (144), Dumfries and Galloway (119) and Greater Glasgow and Clyde (101)
• The highest rates of vacancies are in island and rural health boards, with the Western Isles recording an astonishing three-quarters of consultant posts vacant (76%), followed by Shetland (64%), Dumfries and Galloway (57%) and Orkney (44%)
• Consultant vacancies have risen since the last time the figures were collated by BMA Scotland, with 1,003 WTE vacancies and a rate of 14.4% recorded in 2025.
• In addition to consultant vacancies, nearly one in four posts for specialty, associate specialist and specialist (SAS) doctors are unfilled, with a vacancy rate of 22%.

 
Dr Joanna Bredski, chair of BMA Scotland’s Consultant Committee, said: “The official figures on consultant vacancies are alarming enough – but our figures showing the true extent of the gaps in the senior doctor workforce are shocking and simply cannot be ignored.

“The reality on the ground is that our FOI indicated well over a thousand posts are unfilled. This leaves patients facing lengthy waiting lists because there are not enough consultants to keep up with demand, with many being forced to pay for their own treatment in the private sector. And it leaves doctors facing huge pressures in trying to deliver the best for their patients while working in often vastly understaffed departments. It is a vicious, self-defeating circle that means we lose doctors while patients suffer.

“This was reflected in our recent wellbeing survey of senior doctors in Scotland which found one in four doctors said their workload is unmanageable.  Two-thirds of doctors said that work is harming their wellbeing and particularly concerning was that one in four doctors told us that services in their areas of work are normally unsafe.

“We have consistently warned of the urgent need to deliver a comprehensive and forward-thinking workforce plan for the NHS which looks at level of patient need and the doctors required for the future. However, achieving this will require a robust examination of the existing challenges and unless the true scale of vacancies is recognised, any workforce plan risks being a worthless paper exercise that will fail to deliver the change which is so urgently needed.

“Instead, we need a long-term proper medical workforce plan for Scotland, which must accurately forecast demand, set out achievable actions and the necessary investment to ensure we have doctors and other healthcare professionals needed, along with a detailed plan of how to tackle the many issues the NHS faces. While we were encouraged that the recent Future Medical Workforce report set out the huge workforce challenges effectively, we now need action to ensure the NHS medical workforce can meet the needs of the population. The basic starting point for this must be to acknowledge the current reality on the ground – without this, any attempt to address the workforce crisis or reduce waiting lists will simply be doomed to fail.”

Notes to editors

BMA Scotland’s FOI data for vacancies took into consideration posts that are temporarily filled by locums, posts that have not yet been advertised, and posts that have remained vacant for so long they are no longer being advertised. The official figures released by NES for the Scottish Government do not account for any of these vacancies. 
 
The FOI request was submitted to Scotland’s 14 territorial health boards, along with NHS Education for Scotland, State Hospital, NHS National Services Scotland, Golden Jubilee and Public Health Scotland, and requested information on vacancies for both consultant and SAS doctors.
 
The comparable quarterly figures on consultant vacancy rates published by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are as of September 2025 and can be found here.

The BMA is a professional association and trade union representing and negotiating on behalf of all doctors in the UK. A leading voice advocating for outstanding health care and a healthy population. An association providing members with excellent individual services and support throughout their lives.