NHS Tayside chiefs have reduced next year’s budget cuts to £33 million.
The health board is targeting reductions in what it spends on agency staff and on property in a bid to try to cut its cloth accordingly.
The figure is much lower than the £58.4m NHS Tayside had initially predicted to have to cut from its budget of more than £600m this year.
Minutes from a recent health board meeting showed that members raised significant concerns over the service’s ability to make those cuts.
But ahead of a further meeting, an NHS Tayside spokeswoman confirmed that the level of cuts had been slashed.
She said: “By building on a range of corporate initiatives implemented during the latter part of 2015/16, we have reduced our initial efficiency challenge for 2016/17 from £58.4m to £33m.
“As a board, NHS Tayside remains committed to a five-year programme of improvement and transformation which will sustain the delivery of person-centred, safe and effective treatment and care for all our patients and their families.
“Through this programme we continue to focus on a number of key cost pressure areas where we are looking in detail at how we reduce waste and variation in our system.
“These areas include agency spend, prescribing, procurement and our property plans.
“Delivery in these areas, in partnership with the hard work and commitment shown by all our staff every day, will support NHS Tayside to continue to deliver now and into the future.”
Speaking at last month’s meeting, Lindsay Bedford, interim director of finance for NHS Tayside, had highlighted the need to “change spend patterns, particularly in relation to the use of agency staff, overtime and the nurse bank”.
But several board members had voiced concerns about the viability of meeting such a target.
Councillor Dave Doogan, of Perth and Kinross Council, had said he “did not feel that the savings target was achievable”.
