Dumfries and Galloway health chiefs are facing a £20million funding shortfall.
And they believe it would be “stretching mathematical credibility” to balance the books over a short period.
Jeff Ace, the chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway (right), this week admitted he is “not sure” it is currently possible to reassure the public about the level of service they’d receive if the necessary cuts are made.
The health board needs to slash £20m from its budget for 2022/23 to reach a break-even position.
Finance director Katy Kerr warned board members on Monday she feared the only way to do this was to ask the Scottish Government for extra cash.
She said: “At this stage I can’t see any option which doesn’t seek additional non-recurring support to bridge that in-year gap of £20million.”
A letter from the Scottish Government’s director of health finance, Richard McCallum, to Mr Ace revealed that any financial support offered will be on the same terms as before the coronavirus pandemic.
That means it will “need to be accompanied by a recovery plan and will be repayable in full by the board” and returning to a financial balance within three years. Mr Ace told the meeting: “I think mathematically the return from an underlying position of a
£20-£30million deficit within three years is extraordinarily difficult to imagine – on top of finding additional savings to repay £20million.
“It’s stretching mathematical credibility. It’s not that there are a list of things that would be really difficult to do, it’s that there is no such list we could reel off that would generate those sorts of savings.
“You are looking at very, very significant reductions in our baseline staffing, very, very significant reductions in our infrastructure and service offerings and even then you just can’t make this add up within our requirement to provide a safe and comprehensive set of services.”
Ms Kerr added they had been “pretty open and transparent” with the Scottish Government over the board’s financial position, with most health boards across the country facing real financial challenges.
And she feared there was a long way to go before there was a “realistic acknowledgment of some of the pressures”.
Chairman Nick Morris said the only way to deliver recurring savings would be if we “remodel the services radically”.
He asked how a PR message could be put out to the public “to give assurance about how we will deal with this”.
But Mr Ace responded: “The scale of these financial savings is such I’m not sure we can guarantee the public will see a service offering at the end of this they will be reassured by.
“I’m not sure what reassurance we can give at the moment until we’ve got that list of proposals that will deliver on the scale of this.”
