NHS plunges £16 million into the red

SCOTLAND’S health boards have plunged millions of pounds into the red amid government cost-cutting and the soaring costs of drugs.

NHS boards have revealed a £16.1 million overspend, blaming the cost of expensive medicines and paying temporary nurses and doctors to plug staff shortages.

The problem has emerged in NHS boards’ latest cash flow reports, which reveal eight out of Scotland’s 11 mainland health boards are over budget with just weeks to spare before the end of the financial year.

Managers have been ordered to make £300m of efficiency savings this year by the Scottish Government, meaning pressure is tighter than it has been in many years.

Health boards are now reporting multi-million-pound overspends to cover ongoing costs such as drugs, staff absences and sending patients to private clinics for specialist treatment.

Senior management representatives warned that future services would be in jeopardy if budget pressures continue.

The admission has horrified patients’ groups, who last night called for more NHS funding to avoid patient care being compromised.

Margaret Watt, chairman of the Scotland Patients’ Association, said: “Health issues are getting worse but we are being starved of money by the Westminster government.

“This will adversely affect patient care and mean patients will be denied things they need.”

The latest overspend figures represent the amount of money each board has spent so far this financial year – which ends in March – compared with their budgeted expectations.

The highest is at NHS Highland at £3.5m, while NHS Greater Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest health board, has admitted an overspend of £2.8m so far.

Both NHS Fife and Lanarkshire come in at £2.5m over budget, while NHS Lothian is £2.1m over budget.

NHS Tayside has overspent by £1.9m and NHS Borders and Grampian have notched up an overspend of around £1.4m. NHS Forth Valley has an overspend of £532,000.

NHS Highland blames its overspend, which it admits is “higher than expected”, on the high cost of locum doctors at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, the GPs’ drug prescribing, out of hours services and interpreters.

In its board papers, NHS Borders warns that the cost of prescriptions has been “unpredictable” and also highlights the cost of sending patients to specialist services such as private eating disorder clinics.

NHS Glasgow blames its overspend on implementing cost savings plans and GP prescribing.

Only NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Lanarkshire and NHS Dumfries and Galloway have not overspent.

Last year, a report by Audit Scotland revealed a “good” financial performance, with boards well within budget.

But the latest figures come amid massive belt-tightening across the NHS, with boards told they must make huge efficiency savings within the overall £11 billion budget.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw claimed the SNP government’s free prescriptions policy was adding to the NHS drugs bill.

He said: “Free prescriptions are now putting pressure on budgets.

“Ultimately the cost of this is unquantifiable because there’s a drift towards people claiming for over-the-counter drugs like travel sickness pills that they otherwise would have paid for.

“The real worry is that this will lead to cuts, such as fewer nurses.

“Everyone accepts there’s scope for efficiency, but opportunities to meaningfully achieve this are elusive. We have to find a way to access these because pressures are going to increase.”

NHS managers insisted they were on target to break even by the end of March.

Martin Hill, secretary of the Institute of Healthcare Management Scotland, which represents 600 NHS managers and chief executives, said there was no pressing problem but warned that future services would be at risk if budget pressures continued.

Hill said: “There will be fluctuations in health board budgets and there’s always a need to improve efficiency because demands from patients and services continue to grow.

“The boards have all been working hard to live within their allocations.

“They are managing to do this at the moment without compromising patient care, but if the tightening continues they are going to run out of the simple efficiencies and some of the more fundamental changes in the way services are provided are going to have to be looked at.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Boards manage their own budgets, and overspends for a variety of reasons are not uncommon.

“However, all boards are forecasting that they will be within budget for 2011-12.”