HEALTH chiefs at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust say there is no knight in shining armour going to come in and save the cash-strapped organisation.
During its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Worcestershire Royal Hospital on Wednesday (September 23), Colin Gentile, interim director of finance revealed that the 2014/15 deficit £25.9million and could hit £58million in 2015/16.
However he added: “Although the numbers are bad at the moment, there is hope.
“We need to spend more sensibly – there is not a knight in shining armour that is going to come in with a lot of cash.”
Neal Stote, the chairman of the Save the Alex campaign, agreed and added outside action was needed.
“We have a health service that has got a chronic funding problem – do we think the trust can turn itself around – no we don’t.
“We have no confidence in that.”
During the 2014/15 year, the trust spent an extra £4.2million than was planned on agency staff wages.
A further £4.6million was incurred in fines and penalties – and Mr Gentile pointed out that such sums could not be budgeted for in forward plans for the year, adding ‘every fine was an extra burden.’
With regards to the current 2015/16 year, the trust is already £23.8million overspent after just five months.
In a statement Mr Gentile said: “If no action is taken the deficit would be £58million.”
However the interim director of finance assured that the trust had a saving plan which aims to reduce that figure to £48m.
“We are working to get the deficit down further to try to reach our target of a deficit no greater than £31.3m,” he added.
The meeting comes just weeks after the news that the cash-strapped trust was currently overspending by £1m per week.
