Warning NHS may spend £19.7m too much

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 yesterday.

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 will not 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 nonrecurring 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 £8.6m of this is recurring and supports the financial sustainability of the board in future years.

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 the number of qualified nurses is expected to “significantly” reduce.

Board member, Professor Rory Mccrimmon said: “If you employed every graduate from the Dundee University nursing school, you’d still be 20% down in terms of capacity.

“Across every health care profession now we’re not getting the recruitments that we used to get in the past.”