NHS Forth Valley facing £10m overspend as all departments told to find savings
NHS Forth Valley is already facing an overspend of £10 million this financial year, and "immediate action" is needed now to reduce spending, members of the board have been told.
Finance director Scott Urquhart told the health board this week that all departments will now be asked to find a further two per cent of savings from their budgets over the year.
The board's financial plan for 2025/26 was agreed with the Scottish Government in March and the local health service was expected to break even by making savings of more than £38 million.
However, the figures for the first three months of 25/26 are showing that the planned savings have not been easy to make and there has already been an overspend of £5.5 million.
The latest report shows an overspend in medical pay costs £2.6m and nurse pay costs of £1 million to date, while the cost of drugs is also creating financial pressure with an overspend of £1.8 million.
The board also has to find £1.8m of savings that were not achieved in previous years, while surgical sundry budgets are already £500,000 over target.
Another factor is that funding that NHS Forth Valley had assumed it would be getting from the Scottish Government - including money to cover the cost of National Insurance increases - was "lower than planned".
Mr Urquhart added that there have been some significant savings already made, including a major reduction in spending on bank nursing, but overall spending is up.
"Looking ahead, we are changing our projection from break even to a £10 million overspend in this financial year," he said.
"We've discussed that with Scottish Government and set out some of the issues that we are facing, which are similar issues to other boards in NHS Scotland.
"But alongside that, we need to set out some clear mitigations for those cost pressures as quickly as we can."
Mr Urquhart said lots of work to reduce costs is already underway, including work to find 'spend to save' opportunities and continuing to reduce the number of extra beds that have been used in Forth Valley Royal Hospital in recent years.
Director of acute services, Garry Fraser, pointed out that last year the hospital had 108 additional patients in unfunded beds while today there are 30.
He said that reducing these beds meant not only better care for patients, but also financial savings as additional staff costs are reduced.
However, Mr Urquhart said that the scale of the financial challenge means they will "need to go further" and ask staff to look at any opportunity to reduce costs, with a particular focus on reducing waste.
He said: "What we are proposing to do now is to go out to all the budget holders and seek a further two per cent saving from each of them.
"We are looking for all of our services to come back into line with their budget."
He stressed that changing the financial forecasting an overspend at this stage in the year "is not something we do lightly", but he said it was important to send an early message to staff about the situation.
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