NHS Scotland boss says boards face ‘challenging’ financial position this year

The chief executive of NHS Scotland has said she has “no doubt” health boards will have to deal with financial challenges this year.

Caroline Lamb pledged to work alongside regional health boards to identify cuts that can be made to ease pressure.

The concern was compounded by Richard McCallum, the Scottish Government’s director for health finance and governance, who said there is a “significant financial challenge” on the health service.

Ms Lamb’s comments come in the wake of a stark warning from NHS Dumfries and Galloway chief executive Jeff Ace, who told a Holyrood committee that his board faces a deficit this year and he “technically can’t afford one in 10 of (the) workforce”.

Appearing before the Public Audit Committee on Thursday, Ms Lamb said: “I have no doubt that many boards are looking at a very, very challenging position going into 2023-24.

“That said, we would expect – as we did last year – to work with boards through the course of this year.

“We have a national sustainability and value programme, which Richard may want to say more about, in terms of how we’re working with boards to support all of our NHS boards to identify savings and efficiencies in order to manage that through to a better position.”

Mr McCallum added: “I’m absolutely not underestimating the scale of the financial challenge… we do go into 2023-24 with a significant financial challenge that we all need to work through and that is a reality of those system pressures.

“As Audit Scotland has said, we’re not alone in NHS Scotland in terms of some of those particular pressures they raise in those reports.”

Mr McCallum went on to say that NHS Dumfries and Galloway is among the four boards whose budgets were not balanced at the turn of the financial year, adding there is a need to “go further” on reducing spending in areas such as procurement and agency costs.

Meanwhile, Ms Lamb gave a commitment that National Treatment Centres (NTCs) in Larbert and at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank would be opened by the end of the year.

Both projects, which form part of a Scottish Government commitment to improve capacity, have been delayed, with the Golden Jubilee due to open in June and the Larbert site slated to open last year, according to the original NHS recovery plan.

Asked if the delays will result in cost overruns, NHS Scotland chief operating officer John Burns said he would come back to the committee with financial information.