Home   Bury St Edmunds   News   Article

Subscribe Now

Chief executive of West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds warns of ‘difficult decisions’ due to bigger than anticipated multi-million pound deficit




A hospital boss has warned that they will have to make ‘difficult decisions’ as it faces a bigger deficit than anticipated.

Dr Ewen Cameron, chief executive of West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT), said they are in a ‘significant period of financial constraint and cost savings are critically important over the next three years’.

At the end of June, the trust, which runs West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds, finished the month with a £9.5 million deficit - £3.1 million more than where it wanted to be at this point in the year.

West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds
West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds

It had planned to finish 2024/25 with a £15.2 million deficit after delivering a Cost Improvement Programme (CIP) of £16.5 million.

The trust said it is dealing with a challenging financial position due to many factors, including non-recurrent funding received during Covid-19, rising costs due to high inflation in recent years and costs associated with around two years of industrial action.

The challenges were outlined in papers to the trust’s board which met today.

Dr Ewen Cameron, chief executive of West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Ewen Cameron, chief executive of West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Cameron said the CIP focuses not just on reducing spending, but improving efficiencies in how they work.

“While we hit our CIP targets for the first three months, this significantly increases from £507,000 a month to more than £1.5 million a month until the end of year, which will take considerable effort to achieve,” he said.

Achieving the CIP was crucial, he said, and they would ‘undoubtedly have to take some difficult decisions’ but there were positives to highlight.

The CIP is made up of 186 ongoing projects in a wide range of areas.

This includes the pharmacy teams’ medicines programme with a focus on using biosimilar medicines and generic medicines to reduce spending as well as reducing wastage and improving procurement.

The trust’s finance report said its cash balance at June 30 was £3.3 million, made up of £533,000 of cash set aside to pay for capital projects and £2.8 million for revenue payments.

The cash forecast suggests the trust has enough cash until the end of July and it planned to only pay key suppliers, while NHSE guidance suggests it should not prioritise paying NHS invoices.

It said suppliers who are not prioritised may offer worse terms or withdraw services/be unwilling to supply essential consumables.

It has requested cash support for its planned deficit and so far it has received £6 million, with a further £3.8 million requested to the end of quarter two.

The report said the current shortfall requires additional capital which is a separate application and it successfully made similar applications in 2023/24.

It has approached the Integrated Care Board for a cash advance.

“They have supported this in the past (including in 2023/24) but to date they have no spare cash available to support WSFT,” it said.

Dr Cameron said two new board members will be working with them to help recover the financial position.

After the meeting, he said: “Like many trusts across the country, we are currently dealing with a challenging financial position, and our teams across the trust are working very hard to improve this.

“This is being led by a comprehensive cost improvement programme, which aims to not just reduce the amount we spend, but also improve how efficiently we use our resources so that we continue providing high quality and safe care for our communities.”