Report warns NHS Fife has failed to turn round budget overspend
Health chiefs in Fife have been told critical action is needed to avoid a massive budget overspend by the end of the financial year.
- By Claire Warrender
- Published in the Courier : 14.11.11
- Published online : 14.11.11 @ 02.24pm
The dire warning comes after a report to NHS Fife board members suggested the health board is showing an overspend of just over £2.5 million for the first six months of 2011-12, with that position unlikely to improve unless urgent measures are put in place.
Much of the expenditure has come within NHS Fife's operational division, although other overspends have been reported in areas such as prescribing, with GP prescribing alone overspent by £1.5 million as Fife remains the highest cost prescriber in primary care in Scotland.
Chris Bowring, director of finance at NHS Fife, said detailed projections have been carried out in relation to various areas of the organisation but admitted the overall financial picture — as it stands — does not look good.
She said: ''Based on these projections and the financial performance for the six months, it is clear that achievement of the key financial target of break-even by the year-end is at risk. The actions put in place to reduce expenditure are not yet resulting in a significant improvement in the financial position.
''Continuation of expenditure at current levels would lead to a significant overspend at year-end, and it is now critical that NHS Fife continues to implement financial recovery actions immediately and take other remedial actions to control and reduce expenditure as far as possible.''
While more than £12m of efficiency savings have been identified across the health board for 2011-12, Mrs Bowring added that many areas of the organisation are still ''significantly short'' of the level of savings identified earlier this year.
''There is now an urgent requirement that those areas with reduced levels of delivery since the start of the year identify schemes as early as possible to increase savings and ensure the targets are met by the year-end,'' she noted.
The latest concerns come after a report to NHS Fife's operational divisional committee suggested that the division had amassed a £1.245m overspend in the first quarter of the financial year.
At the time NHS Fife operational division chairman Dave Stewart described the numbers as ''worrying'' but said management had a ''lot of faith'' that the situation could be turned around, pointing out that all staff had been spoken to about how they could contribute as the organisation tries to find ways to claw back the shortfall.
Much of the overspend was attributed to the use of more expensive agency nurses and medical staff to cover gaps in rotas and sickness absence.
However, it is understood the operational division budget's overspend alone has now increased from the £1.245m previously reported to £1.535m at the end of September, although up-to-date figures are expected to be presented to the operational division this month.
Costs within emergency care and renal services in particular are causing ''significant concern'', according to the report, as the rate of overspend in the directorate has accelerated in the last two months.
An overspend of just over £1m has been reported in emergency care, largely relating to nursing — notably within care of the elderly, respiratory, cardiology and palliative care services — as well as critical care and the acute medical unit.
09.43am - 15.11.2011 Gnasher - dundee, angus Report This
Hopefully this overspend won't impact on the care of patients who need regular sheet changing, incontinence pads, spare uniforms for nurses when they are soiled by elderley patients suffering from dementia etc etc etc
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