The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Warning over NHS spending
Concerns shared
Scotland’s public spending watchdog yesterday said efforts being made by NHS Highland to sort out its finances were setting off “warning signs”.
Auditor General Caroline Gardner also understood concerns over the board’s decision to spend £1 million on financial consultants.
She told MSPs the sum spent on experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) was “clearly a lot of money”.
Ms Gardner was speaking about her recent report into the health board, which highlighted its failure to make multimillion-pound savings and control its locum bill.
Published earlier this month, Ms Gardner’s 2018-19 audit of NHS Highland found the board had identified savings of £50.5m in 2018-19, but only realised £26.6m.
The report said the board had to make urgent changes to overcome its money problems but cast doubt on its ability to do so.
At Holyrood’s public audit committee, Tory MSP Edward Mountain expressed concern that the money spent on PWC represented 10% of the board’s overspend this year.
And he said workers “on the ground” were “less than enthusiastic” about what PWC had achieved so far.
The financial experts were brought in to restore the health board’s finances.
Ms Gardner replied: “It is clearly a lot of money and I can absolutely understand the concern in Highland about the amount being spent on the project management office and management of the changes rather than on healthcare services.”
She said it was too early to say whether the spend was value for money but it would be looked at in next year’s annual audit report.
Mr Mountain claimed NHS Highland was not good at finding “recurring savings” but “very good” at “cutting with a sharp knife for one year and then not following it through”.
Ms Gardner agreed, saying there were already signs that 2019-20 savings would not be met as action to cut costs was planned for the end of the year.
She said: “For auditors that is always a warning sign. You expect people to have a steady plan during the year for how they are going to achieve savings.”
Labour MSP Anas
Sarwar drew attention to locum costs, which rose from £14.9m in 2017-18 to £15.6m in 2018-19.
MSPs also heard that recruitment is still an issue, with NHS Highland yet to find a director of finance.
An NHS Highland spokesman said: “PricewaterhouseCoopers worked closely with NHS Highland staff and contributed directly to identifying a risk-adjusted savings pipeline of £17.2m which, once delivered, will represent a substantial return on investment.
“The financial savings programme continues to perform well and the emphasis remains on identifying sustainable, recurrent savings.”
“You expect people to have a steady plan for the whole year”