NHS Fife’s overspend has ballooned to nearly £19.5 million for the first eight months of the financial year.
It's grown from the near £16m deficit that was reported just two months ago and there's still no sign of any help from the Scottish Government, despite ministers raising concern about the "adverse position".
The reasons for the health board's financial woes haven’t changed – they include increasing costs for medicine and staffing as well as delays in making cost savings.
The projected year-end deficit hasn’t altered either with NHS Fife still expecting to be in the red by £23m by the end of March.
“Following our quarter two financial performance review in November the Scottish Government has advised of their concern about our adverse position,” a board report from Maxine Michie, deputy director of finance, stated.
“[They] indicate that a board wide effort is required to reduce and manage the deficit.”
Despite the dire financial straits, the Scottish Government is not yet planning to intervene in the board’s affairs.
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According to Ms Mitchie’s report, Holyrood recently assessed all 14 Scottish health boards against the national support and intervention framework.
Six have been formally escalated for financial management and monitoring, but not NHS Fife.
While the board are not “delivering in line with agreed plans” the government said it has only reached the “informal support stage.”
Ms Mitchie said: “NHS Fife have been assessed as being at level two of this framework due to the relative scale of deficit being reported and variation from plan.
“Stage two is an informal support stage, where the Scottish Government is providing support and guidance, but not intervening in the board.”
There will be increased surveillance and monitoring from Holyrood but there are a few steps to go before Stage five, which is when it's decided an NHS board requires statutory intervention.
The financial report said the current position “reflects the continuing impact of the historic and emerging financial pressures”.
Ms Mitchie said it also reflects “limited progress” on delivering the £15m cost improvement programme which was agreed by the board last April.
She added: “At the beginning of November, we met with Scottish Government colleagues to discuss our quarter two financial performance.
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"We highlighted the key financial challenges to our financial position including the actions being taken to actively manage the level of cost pressures we are currently experiencing.
“We are working with Scottish Government colleagues and have requested additional support and benchmarking data from their Finance Delivery Unit on several high expenditure areas.”
Ms Mitchie's report concluded: “Communications and dialogue with Scottish Government colleagues continue to advise that we must identify more actions between now and the financial year end and move at pace to improve our forecast outturn and move towards break even.”
NHS Fife’s latest financial report and financial position will be discussed on Tuesday at the board meeting.
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