IJB begs for £1m to halt rising waiting times

THE number of people in Argyll and Bute who are not receiving an outpatient appointment within the 12-week waiting period is set to increase by 320 per cent, new figures reveal.

A meeting of the Integration Joint Board (IJB) of Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership heard on November 29 that there were 1,120 ‘breaches’ in 2016/17, up from 532 the previous year, and it is forecast to rise again threefold to 4,719 in 2017/18. If this trend continues without investment, the meeting heard, people could be waiting 26 weeks as of September 2017 for some specialities. The IJB noted further breaches are likely without funding and a service redesign.

The board said it was ‘inequitable and unacceptable the £3.2 million allocated to the NHS Highland board should be only spent on the Highland council population’.

It directed its chief executive to write to the NHS Highland board requesting the ‘NRAC allocation of funding (£925,000) be released to Argyll and Bute’.

The IJB began this year facing a budget gap of £2 million, but its projection has jumped to £3.4 million ‘due to ongoing overspends for locums/agency staff [and] overspends in social care services’.

Its financial recovery plan has had to be updated with further savings to ‘ensure’ a balanced budget for March 2017-18, but if the savings are not achieved, the overspend threatens to roll into 2018-19, swelling next year’s budget gap from £9.1 million to £11.4 million.