NHS Tayside is staring down the barrel of a £19.7m overspend as the service continues to be challenged by staffing vacancies and inflation.
The figure was revealed during a board meeting held on Thursday.
Previously, the forecast overspend was sitting around £33m – but the board has been able to alleviate some financial pressure through £14m worth of Scottish Government funding.
However, officials have given a stark warning that a good chunk of funding won’t be available in the next financial year.
Director of Finance, Stuart Lyall said: “A point to note around (the government funding) is that it’s non-recurring in nature.
“So it helps this year’s position but it doesn’t address the underlying issues that we have going forward.”
NHS Tayside has received £30.4m in additional funding from the Scottish Government over the past 12 months.
But only £8.6 million of this is recurring and supports the financial sustainability of the board in future years.
Areas of overspend
The board also heard that reliance on agency staff, inflationary costs, and the level of demand for unscheduled care have been some of the main areas of overspending.
Members also raised concerns over future nursing staff, as it was revealed that the number of qualified nurses is expected to “significantly” reduce.
Board member, Professor Rory McCrimmon said: “If you employed every graduate from the University of Dundee nursing school, you’d still be 20% down in terms of capacity.
“Across every single health care profession now we’re not getting the recruitments that we used to get in the past.
“Part of it of course is pay and part of it is because the health service is not necessarily seen to be an attractive place to work at present.
“So there is a lot of work to be done across the board – but the nursing I think is a major crisis.”
