Walsall Manor trust runs up £1.67m deficit
A hospital trust has racked up a deficit of £1.67 million – £1.2m higher than expected – in just two months, it was revealed today.
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs the town's Manor Hospital, had a deficit of £1.67m in April and May.
Bosses set a target of £437,000 – but have gone almost three times over that.
They said pressures on capacity and increased numbers of emergency patients had caused the problem.
The trust needs to save £10.7m in 2014/15 as part of its cost improvement plan.
But bosses have also revealed that they have so far only earmarked £8m of those savings.
The trust has been hit with an ever-increasing amount of patients, which has seen scores of extra people from Staffordshire receive care at the site.
Chief executive Richard Kirby said: "The trust has had a difficult start to the year on financial performance. This is partly due to continued use of extra capacity, delivering extra operating sessions to reduce waiting times and to the fact that we had not yet fully identified the full cost improvement plan for 2014/15 with only £8m of our £10.7m target identified.
"The current position assumes no over-performance income from the CCG although at current levels of activity we think this will change in later months."
The trust been trying to drive down the cost of temporary workers, in a bid to reduce the amount it is spending.
Latest figures showed the trust spent £3,324,655 on agency staff in 2013/14. The cost had more than doubled compared to the £1,432,207 in 2012/13.
In April the expenditure was £473,000 on agency workers, £592,000 towards bank staff and another £420,000 on locums.
Thousands of extra emergency patients have been treated at Walsall Manor over the last year, with extra numbers coming from Staffordshire where Stafford Hospital has had reduced opening hours in the accident and emergency department.
Figures for a six-month period last year showed there were 16,062 emergency admissions, against a planned target of 14,723. It has also emerged that up to 70 new nurses could be recruited at the Manor by as early as September.
These are expected to come from recruitment fairs, a national initiative to get people back into nursing and a care to join us campaign run through social media.
The trust is also looking to work with universities to get people back on a practice course in later summer and early autumn.
An extra clinical support worker is also being put on busy wards as part of a trial which is due to run until late in September.
