The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
NHS Tayside off high alert despite £1.5m overspend
Board has been upgraded though still exceeding monthly budget
NHS Tayside has been lifted out of emergency measures despite continuing to overspend by £1.5 million a month.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman upgraded the financially-troubled health board from the highest alert level on the back of an independent report finding it is on the “road to recovery”.
However, Sir Lewis Ritchie’s assessment also warns “much more needs to be done” and that key changes at the Dundee-based organisation have “taken much longer than expected”.
Ms Freeman said the improvements identified by the Assurance and Advisory Group allows her to reclassify Tayside in stage four under the NHS board performance escalation framework.
Tayside has been at stage five since April last year – the most severe category – which means the board is “unable to deliver effective care” and Scottish Government intervention is required.
In the report published today, Sir Lewis said the board is on course to overspend by £18.7 million in 2018-19, which is no worse than the estimate at the start of the year.
The former GP said: “The board has made substantial improvements in controlling and reducing expenditure, with the monthly overspend reducing by over 20% from £1.9m per month between April and June to an average of £1.5m from July 2018 to January 2019.”
The report said the board made more savings than expected thanks to less reliance on agency nurses, a reduced medicine bill, “efficiency and productivity” improvements in care and costs cut in procurement and estates.
“On consideration of the most recent evidence, our overall observation would be that NHS Tayside has made progress towards addressing each of the 10 recommendations in our initial staging report published in June 2017,” Sir Lewis said.
“While we are of the view that NHS Tayside is on the road to recovery, much more needs to be done.
“Encouraging incremental change has happened but transformational change still beckons and is imperative.”
The board has been unable to balance the books without government loans since 2012, a deficit fuelled by high levels of spending on staff, prescriptions and buildings.
The financial disarray led to the board dipping into charity funds to cover dayto-day spending, exposed last April.
Reacting to the AAG findings, Ms Freeman said: “On the basis of these encouraging results, it is the right time to bring NHS Tayside into line with other boards in a similar position.”