The Labour party asking the health service to use its communications budget for recruiting more nurses, argues it could by using the £3.9 million spent on over 120 press and media staff, hire 150 nurses.

The sum was obtained through making Freedom of Information requests to health boards.

Labour’s Jackie Baillie accusing the SNP of forcing the NHS to plan 4,000 job cuts, including 1,500 nurses, said she wanted the NHS to employ real not spin doctors, including nurses not press officers, adding the £4 million spent on press and communications, in a better use of the resources should go on the front line.

The figures reveal a 122 communications staff were employed in 2009 - 2010 at a cost of £3.9 million, which a Scottish Government spokeswoman said was necessary, as it was the duty of health boards to communicate public health information to the communities they served.

A major study finds, in the largest specialities, hospital operating theatres are lying idle, as one-third of surgery time is lost to due to doctors and nurses routinely starting late and finishing early.

The study of 400 NHS operating theatres found less than 50% of time scheduled for operations was actually spent performing surgery, last year.

The researchers comparing hours staff were scheduled to operate in each theatre on each day with the hours actually spent on operations, concluded the wasted costs of paying doctors and nurses to do nothing, while keeping facilities open, meant an inefficient trust with 10 theatres, wasted about £2.5 million a year.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance said it was ‘absolutely outrageous’ so much money was being wasted, when public finances were stretched to the limit.

However, the British Medical Association said it was wrong to blame doctors and nurses for theatre lists starting late, as efficient management of operating time was complex and dependent on many factors, such as, bed sufficiency and intensive care places available for patients after surgery.