02.08.18
NHS Grampian to make £18m in cuts to meet yearly budget
An NHS region which provides services to over half a million people is planning to make £18m in cuts annually to balance the books.
NHS Grampian, which provides health and social care to Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, and Moray, will be making more than £70m in cuts over the next four years — with reductions on the cost of locums and on medicines coming first.
The Scottish region’s workforce plan for 2018-2021 will look to procure £18.3m in yearly savings, with similar savings for the three years after.
NHS Grampian will aim to rectify finances following missing 16 of its 19 fiscal targets for the last year following Audit Scotland’s report in June.
NHS Grampian’s board, who will be assessing the workforce plan for the next three years today, will also be focussing on the spend of more than £37m last year on external agency staff in an effort to fill rota gaps.
The workforce plan highlighted “additional pressures” on current staff members due to key positions including nursing, medical staff, and health professionals such as radiographers and physiotherapists have had vacancies of more than three months. The use of medical locums and agency staff could also create an “increased reliance” on the costly sector, the plan noted.
Alexander Burnett, Scottish Conservative MSP for Aberdeenshire West, said: "These figures once again demonstrate the financial straitjacket within which NHS Grampian has to operate. The Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly highlighted that this area is being short-changed under an SNP government.
“The amount of money per head of population that NHS Grampian received this year is the lowest anywhere in Scotland. It is dwarfed by the funds provided to many areas in the Central Belt. Our research has shown a direct link between the poor level of funding and declining performance across a range of different measures.
“Perhaps the new Health Secretary will do what her SNP predecessors have failed to do and give Grampian a fairer deal.”
An NHS Grampian spokesperson said the board is “confident” that expenditure on medical locums will be reduced over the next year, after appointments have been made to a number of previously-held locum consultant posts.
“There is the likelihood that agency nursing spend will increase in the short term in order to ensure continuity of safe staffing levels and to support a number of key service delivery initiatives. In the longer term, the board expects agency nursing spend to reduce as a number of workforce redesign plans have been developed and are currently being implemented,” the spokesperson added.
“However, our preference is to recruit permanently and we continue to work hard at filling our vacancies. The provision of a safe and sustainable service for our patients and staff will always be the major consideration whenever we consider reducing our spend on supplementary staffing.
“The main areas which will be targeted for achievement of savings in 2018/19 are medical locums, savings on the cost of medicines and savings delivered through service and productive efficiencies.”
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