Department of Health release budget update for 2024/25
Across Health and Social Care Services, there has been a sustained focus on maximising efficiency and productivity to deliver annual cost reductions and savings whilst balancing the needs of the community we serve. This has resulted in limited opportunities to significantly reduce costs without impacting service provision.
The current budgetary provision for 2024/25 means we have had to produce a one-year financial savings plan. Whilst this plan is challenging, it has the potential to deliver £29.6m in savings targets before 31 March 2025, £6.5m of which comprises one-off savings and reduction in expected pressures.
The current one-year plan focuses on key savings areas that have been categorised as non-catastrophic, but will inevitably have some impact.
The Northern Trust recognises, however, that any impact on the delivery of services, regardless of scale, is regrettable. The Trust is actively working to mitigate the impact of these savings for their patients and wider community. The Trust remains committed to providing the highest standards of compassionate care with our community, in our community.
The 2024/25 savings plan focuses primarily on cost containment measures and targeted actions to reduce costs, including:
- Careful management of additional supervision for patients in hospitals and care homes to ensure consistent and appropriate support is provided which achieves value for money;
- Targeted reduction in some areas of estates spend which will have a minor immediate impact on patients and service users. Experience shows, however, that reducing estate expenditure can be more expensive in the long term;
- Ongoing review of procurement and contracts to identify efficiencies and savings;
- Continued focus on reducing absence levels and scrutiny of new and replacement posts as well as reducing backfill for vacant posts;
- Cost reductions and efficiencies through enhanced skill mix and use of alternative technologies;
- Savings achieved through sustainability projects in energy, carbon and waste reduction; and
- Savings in agency and other premium pay rates across nursing, social work, medical and other staff groups through significant work being done on regional nursing agency work (ceasing off-contract agency use and reducing prices), regional social work (ceasing agency use), and local medical work (reducing prices).
The Trust has carried out a full mid-year review of all savings and while there are some projects which have an associated delivery risk, the Trust believes at this stage, that they are on target to achieve the savings outlined in the 2024/25 Savings Plan. This has only been possible due to a significant focus, involving a wide range of staff.
It is important to note this plan only covers the 2024/25 financial year and the Trust is currently developing a longer term strategic financial recovery plan, as part of our Delivering Value Programme. The achievement of longer term financial stability while addressing the common challenges of an ageing population, higher levels of need and workforce shortages can only be addressed through a combination of regional workforce planning, social care reform, a continued focus on efficiency and productivity and additional funding for Health and Social Care.
A failure to take this strategic approach will lead to stringent measures to reduce spend with severe impacts on service provision. These additional measures, while potentially delivering reduced spend, would be entirely counter strategic and result in a fundamental failure of service delivery, worsening of waiting times and increased risk to patients.
Budget update of other HSC Trusts
21st November 2024
