NHS Highland needs a bailout of almost £16m to break even

NHS Highland has confirmed it has managed to slash its projected overspend for the financial year from £42 million to £15.9 million after developing a largely successful cost improvement programme.

But that still leaves the enormous north health board in a poor financial position because it will now have to seek what is called brokerage – essentially a bailout from the Scottish Government.

Most of the £42 million gap came from acute services – short-term treatment for a severe injury, illness, urgent condition or to recover from surgery – which racked-up an almost £25 million overspend.

Adult social care was over budget by £6.8 million but it as well as acute services clawed back just over £6 million each while other savings were found in support services and elsewhere.

As an indication of the sort of pressures NHS Highland is currently under, it cost the board almost £27 million for additional staffing costs to cover vacancies and unfunded beds alone.

But there was further bad news to come for the board’s finances because the report, which will be presented on Tuesday, also contained the projected overspends ranging from £68 million up to £75 million in each year up to 2026.

For 2023/24 it is forecast that increased funding will total £36.7 million, total additional costs are £76 million resulting in an almost £40 million in-year shortfall.

But carrying forward non-recurring savings and deficits and unachieved savings results in a gap of £68.7 million – an equivalent increase to all the savings made this year.

Then in 2024/25, a funding uplift of £17 million will not be enough to deal with the additional costs of £39.5 million while factoring savings and carried forward deficits results in a blackhole of £76 million.

And in 2025/26, the shortfall between additional funding and costs hits £19.6 million and the carried forward outstanding balances leads to a spending shortfall of £74 million.

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