PATIENTS and the public are being asked to help NHS Dumfries and Galloway manage their £33.6 million funding gap by making sensible decisions around medication.
Health bosses this week agreed a strategy to tackle the major deficit and the public will have a key role.
Facing a huge shortfall in the new financial year, the Board agreed ‘decisive, fast-tracked’ savings measures alongside transformation aimed at longer-term efficiencies.
Explaining the situation, director of finance Katy Kerr said: “These are undoubtedly very difficult times for NHS D&G.
“In the 2025/26 financial year which has just started we are facing an unprecedented budget deficit of £33.6 million. This represents the gap between the funding available and what is needed to maintain services in their current form.
“And the budget for NHS Dumfries and Galloway is not part of an unlimited national pot — it is a fixed local budget. The health board is obliged to deliver services within the budget allocated to it from Scottish Government.
“We’ve now agreed a plan aimed at keeping our essential services running while we transition to new approaches informed by our budget.
“However, we’re asking everyone to help, as every pound in our region that is wasted is a pound that can’t be used for frontline healthcare.”
Their ambitious savings target is to achieve five per cent savings each year, including three per cent recurring savings, which equates to £21.3 million for 2025/26.
A range of moves are intended to achieve this, including work around medicines waste which is estimated to cost the Board more than £1 million every year. It is estimated that savings of £4 million can be released from medicines efficiencies alone.
However, saving money in the short term isn’t enough — the whole system needs to become more efficient.
As such, board members discussed the impact of people remaining in hospital longer than necessary while they await social care packages.
Interim chair Marsali Caig voiced her disappointment at the lack of additional investment into social care during the recent local authority budget-settlement process.
She said: “Given our big challenge in getting people out of hospital who no longer need to be here, and the flow through our hospital services with delayed transfers of care and lack of capacity in social care, I’m disappointed in the settlement.”
However, NHS Dumfries and Galloway is pushing ahead with plans to make sure services are efficient, effective, and built to last and that people get the right care in the right place, using new technology to streamline services, and working with other NHS Boards to share solutions.
Following Monday’s crunch meeting, a public appeal was launched urging people to only order the medicine they need.
Katy Kerr pointed out it could make a massive difference and said: “Every pound wasted on medication is a pound that could be spent on doctors, nurses, or hospital care.
“We don’t have an unlimited resources — if it’s spent on something unnecessary, it’s not there for something essential.”
Meanwhile, it was recognised that the plan did not yet meet the requirements set out by the Scottish Government, and that a further financial plan would be required by the start of June.
