Fury Over Crisis Hit Health Board’s Three Chief Executives

A HEALTH board with three chief executives and a £3.4million overspend were blasted in a report by MSPs yesterday. A committee said there were “serious failings” in the running of NHS Western Isles.

The board’s finance chiefs were singled out for a roasting by the Scottish parliament’s audit committee.

MSPs were “particularly concerned” that the board have three chief executives – one suspended, one on secondment and one filling in.

Yesterday, health secretary Hugh Henry said: “This must be resolved urgently.”

The report said finance chiefs had not done routine tasks or brought in adequate control systems.

It claimed these issues were “repeatedly raised in audit reports year after year without being resolved by the board”. By 2006-7, the board had accumulated a £3.4million overspend.

The report said: “This is clearly unacceptable.

“The committee also believe the Scottish Executive health department failed to grasp the significance of the problems at an early enough stage and failed to brief ministers adequately on the significance of what was developing.

“Earlier, more rigorous challenges might have prevented such a large deficit.”

The report found there were a number of changes to staff at senior level over the period. Henry said: “It is not acceptable for the same failures to keep occurring year after year.

“Where failure occurs, it is simply not good enough to keep moving staff on, often to senior positions.”

He called on Sir John Elvidge, Scotland’s top civil servant, to review the procedures for