Cuts Row Health Board Running at £8m in Red

A health board planning to close an accident and emergency department is running a £8.4m deficit, the worst financial performance of any board in mainland Scotland. NHS Lanarkshire, which has decided to shut the service at Monklands General Hospital, has had a multi-million pound deficit over the past five years.

No other board has faced such consistent money problems. The Western Isles was the only other board running a deficit, at £2.4m last year, with its internal problems leading to high-level departures and strong ministerial criticism.

The SNP linked Lanarkshire’s financial problems to its recent decision to axe the Monklands department. But the board said yesterday that the centralisation of casualty services was instead linked to more than £200m in spending on replacement facilities.

The most recent financial picture of the NHS in Scotland, revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question tabled by the SNP, also showed several boards are running substantial surpluses.

Ayrshire and Arran was £17.4m in the black, after three years of multi-million pound surplus. Dumfries and Galloway had £14.2m unspent, and Greater Glasgow had £12.2m left over at the end of the most recent financial year.

NHS Education ran an £11m surplus, even though training of health professionals is seen as one of the highest priorities for reducing patient waiting times.

Lanarkshire, however, has faced deficits going back over the past five years of £8.4m, £20m, £21m, £7.3m and £4.9m, with its costs in the last financial year standing at £770m. A board spokesman said last night it was on track to get back into the black by 2007-08, but only by selling off some of its surplus land, much of which is currently on the market.

When its accounts were published last month, finance director Susan Goldsmith said the £8.4m deficit represented “a fantastic achievement by all in NHS Lanarkshire…”

Lanarkshire’s problems have been eclipsed, until the most recent figures, by the severe troubles afflicting NHS Argyll and Clyde.

With a deficit of £59.4m last year, and £35.4m the year before, ministers opted to close it down and split its role between the Greater Glasgow and Highland boards. The change was made possible only with a £80m write-off of debt by the executive.

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader at Holyrood, said: “People will want to know why NHS boards have such big deficits when we are told record sums of money are being invested in the NHS.

“In particular, NHS Lanarkshire has run a deficit for each of the past five years. It’s this financial mismanagement that forms the backdrop to the proposed cut at Monklands.”

She criticised Andy Kerr, whose constituency is East Kilbride. “The Health Minister should be embarrassed that the only board to have run a deficit every year is in his own backyard and should ensure that patients in Lanarkshire don’t suffer as a result.”

A Scottish Executive spokesman said: “Recovery plans are in place for the NHS boards who ended this financial year in overspend. Overall, NHS boards are in balance but we continue to exercise effective management.