Contracts for NHS workers could be changed

Future contracts with private suppliers could stipulate that they do not use anyone who has worked for the NHS in the previous 12 months.

Health Minister Andy Kerr said such clauses have been inserted in contracts made south of the border.

The move is being considered in order to reduce hospital waiting times in the health service in Scotland.

Mr Kerr said the Scottish Executive was keen to prevent NHS staff being poached by the private sector.

He told the BBC's The Politics Show: "We can develop a contract with the supply to ensure they do not use anybody who has worked in the NHS for the last six months or 12 months.

Hospital closures

"That is freely available for us to do. It exists in other contracts, so that choice is available to me."

He continued: "We can do it. It has been done elsewhere in the UK and we can deliver that change in Scotland too.

"Most of our investment in the health service in Scotland goes into the public sector.

"We're training more doctors, we have more consultants, we're training more nurses - all of that is happening."

Andy Kerr admits waiting times and targets are a problem

Mr Kerr admitted he needed additional capacity to "help us through some of the problems that we have now" around waiting times and targets.

However, the Scottish National Party's Shona Robison said the answer was to stop closing hospitals.

She added: "The executive are now briefing that the private sector are not going to poach staff from the NHS, which I'm still not convinced about, and we're going to get doctors and nurses from Scandinavia and other European countries.

"My question is why are we not recruiting those people to the NHS in Scotland?"

Conservative health spokesman David Davidson MSP said what was important was the patient and not the system.