Locum costs and bed pressures key risk to Weston budget

The trust is planning for income of £92.8m and is aiming to achieve a surplus of £2.2m, the amount required to make an annual repayment on the trust’s £15.1m loan from the Department of Health in 2008-09. The savings plan for the year is £4.5m, 5 per cent of expenditure budgets.

The report said: “The key major risks to the plan are that savings are not fully delivered, and expenditure on medical staff, in particular locum staffing, is not managed within funds available and that bed pressures are not contained within the funded bed base.”

Funds have been included in the budget to be used for the opening of additional number of beds for a restructed number of weeks to deal with seasonal pressures.

Other cost pressures identified as unavoidable and budgeted for were from maternity leave, and a significant increase in the cost of the trust’s clinical negligence scheme for trusts managed by NHS Litigation Authority as a result of continued increased claims nationally.