NHS care board reports almost £150m deficit

Declining healthcare budgets have been blamed for the deficit

NHS bodies in a region had a deficit of nearly £150m at the end of the financial year.

The Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) had a shortfall of £148.6m at the end of March 2024, according to a report prepared for its committee.

But the ICB, which is responsible for planning NHS services in the area, would have had a £228.6m deficit had it not been for £80m NHS funding, said the documents.

During a meeting, chief finance officer Sam Proffitt said: "It is a significant deficit for the system and it’s one that’s having a huge amount of focus by all of us in the board, in our senior teams and across the organisations."

At the end of March 2024, the ICB had made savings of £240.7m, which was a shortfall of £46m against its plan, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported.

Ms Proffitt told the board "an awful lot" of temporary capacity ,such as additional staff and beds, had been planned due to the ongoing issues with Covid.

“The assumption at the start of the [last financial] year was 'that’s temporary, Covid’s now moved on, we should be able to shut some of that down and deescalate some of that'. That has not been possible," she said.

Highest spenders

Another reason for the deficit had been the "really big, significant hit" on continuing healthcare budgets, Ms Proffitt explained.

“We are one of the highest spenders of continuing healthcare in the country and we have a significant hit this year on inflation and on new packages and that has contributed to a bigger pressure in the ICB books,” she said.

She added work had been done to adhere to a reviewed budget in the autumn.

“Every organisation in the system has worked extremely hard to land where we said we would be at the end of the year,” she said.