Wye Valley NHS Trust overspent £42.5m last year

Hospital bosses in Herefordshire say they overspent £42.5m during the last financial year.

Figures revealed at Wye Valley NHS Trust’s annual general meeting show its total expenditure on goods and services totalled £220.2m for 2018/19 and they paid £8.3m in interest.

Their income for that year was £186m.

Health chiefs also say they made some £10m worth of cuts, during that period, which was the largest level of savings delivered across the West Midlands.

To achieve this they reduced the use of agency nurses and doctors and introduced a number of recruitment and retention measures and improved productivity.

Trust chief executive Glen Burley said the last 12 months had seen achievements and an increase in quality of services at the hospital despite the challenging financial backdrop.

“Our commitment remains to provide the quality of care we’d want for our family and friends and working closely with partners, we will continue to do so,” he said.

“Finance, however, remains challenging.

“Despite finding savings of £10 m – the most by this Trust in one year and proportionately higher than any other trust in the region – we still ended the year with a deficit of £42.5m.

“Negotiations are ongoing to secure a more equitable and sustainable funding regime for the trust.

“While we can influence this to a degree, the final decision lies very much with our commissioners and regulators.”

The hospital trust also made some £12.2m worth of capital investments during the year.

They spent a total of £3.6m on the provision of the acute medical unit while some £2.3m was used to prepare the replacement of the Canadian hutted wards.

Finance bosses also approved the spending of £3.3m on a number of information technology projects.