IF SALISBURY District Hospital were a patient it would be on close watch.
News that it is heading for a £6m deficit by the end of next year (as reported in last week’s Journal) and a spiralling cost of agency staff might be seen as signs of something quite contagious.
In truth the spending against revenue estimates for 2015/16 show an even bigger hole of £13.8m, so there is more than a small dose of optimism in the accounts when they state that £8m can be saved.
Having managed a hospital that has avoided deficits up until now, the news is clearly quite concerning for the hospital bosses.
The Foundation blame the fall in contributions from the central NHS funds (known as the tariff), extra money they need to pay for insurance (up by 55%) and buying in staff to cover for shortages.
They have moved to creating their own staff bank to avoid the higher agency fees, but how much of a dent in the £7.1m cost of such staff in the past year is yet to be seen.
Worryingly, the latest report on finance from the hospital states that: “Funding issues for the NHS would need to be resolved at national level and the situation continued to be discussed with NHS Providers,” before they see any change in fortunes.
Is this just wishful thinking? Or will the patient continue to get worse?
In the meantime the hospital will attempt to make savings the like of which they have not seen in recent times and the first of these will be seriously curtailing any major capital improvement beyond those that are most urgent.
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