Betsi hit by £3.1m fine over wait time targets

NORTH Wales’ struggling health board has had more than £3million taken off it for missing waiting time targets.

A report before a meeting of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board meeting last week said the Welsh Government took back £3.1 million after the board had failed to meet the agreed levels last month.

The government had wanted to see a reduction in the number of people waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment reduced to 4,237 by the end of the winter, but the board got it down to 5,714.

The board had been given £11 million to help achieve waiting time reductions but, because of the missed target, a proportion of it has had to go back to the government.

The troubled health board has been in special measures, the severest form of government supervision, since June 2015.

The government wanted the period of time from referral by a GP or other medical practitioner to hospital for treatment to be reduced, this is known as Referral to Treatment Time (RTT).

A spokesman for the health board said: “We were awarded an additional £11m in October 2017 to reduce the number of people waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment to 4,237 by the end of March. At the end of March 2018, the number of patients waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment was 5,714, down from 10,365 in December 2017. However, this was still short of the target we were set.

“As a result, £3.1m of the addi- tional funding will be returned to Welsh Government. As a consequence, the Health Board’s final unaudited financial position for the year was a deficit of £38.8m.” A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “Over £11 million was provided to the health board during 2017/18 to improve RTT waiting times by the end of March 2018. The management information for the year end position indicates that the agreed target was not achieved and, therefore, a percentage of the funding was recovered in line with the terms of the funding approved. “It is important to note, despite not meeting the target, the management information from the health board has indicated a substantial reduction in the volume of patients waiting over 36 weeks during the last quarter of 2017/18 from their high point in December 2017. We welcome the improvement but further work and focus is needed to ensure this continues into the first quarter in 2018/19 and beyond.”

But the move to penalise the board over the targets was criticised by Llyr Gruffydd (inset), Plaid Cymru’s North Wales AM.

He said: “This repayment begs a number of questions. Firstly, was the target agreed between the Welsh Government and the health board realistic?

“If so, why did the health board fail to hit that target – was it a lack of capacity, incompetence or something else?

“The irony of the clawback is that it will increase the health board’s deficit and, ultimately, the only body that can make good that shortfall is the Welsh Government.”