Health board faced with £90m cutback

SCOTLAND’S biggest health board is facing nearly £90million of cuts.

New papers show NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde faces a ‘financial challenge’ of £86.7million in 2018-19 with cost pressures from drug prescribing and staff pay.

The board has also approved a cost-saving move to keep patients at home for longer, rather than in hospital, with home-based health monitoring and ‘virtual clinics’ where patients are seen by doctors and nurses using mobile devices instead of face-to-face appointments in clinics.

The paper on its financial situation states: ‘It is clear the board is facing another year of significant challenge.’

One of its long-term plans for cost savings is a ‘Moving Forward Together’ strategy, under which primary, community and acute health and social care services will care for more patients at home and ‘promote self-management and independence’.

The strategy will ‘maximise’ the number of patients who are cared for at home instead of in hospital beds.

But Scottish Labour health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: ‘There needs to be a commitment made now that any potential changes to services have to be consulted upon, as per statutory guidelines.’

A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spokesman said it was required to live within its available resources, adding: ‘In 2017-2018 we succeeded in delivering financial balance.’