University Hospital Southampton’s financial plight is despite delivering £90million worth of savings, which included hundreds of jobs cuts.
The figures for 2025/26, which pre-date the major fire at Southampton General Hospital, attracted the attention of the city council’s health overview and scrutiny panel.
Cllr Warwick Payne, who chairs the panel, asked how the overspend had occurred and what steps were being taken to bring the trust budget back in line.
Speaking at the meeting on Thursday, February 12, Duncan Linning-Karp, University Hospital Southampton deputy chief operating officer, said: “This year we are on course to deliver £90million worth of cost improvement savings to try and help us return to a balanced budget going forward.
“The savings programme is made up of a myriad of different things, including savings on drugs, devices, prices, different models of care.”
He added: “It is true to state we will also end the year with an overspend of £45million.
“We are developing, with the ICB (integrated care board) in the region, plans to try and return to break even over the next period.
“It is absolutely challenging and it is important to acknowledge that.”
Cllr John Noon asked if the hospital would be able to balance the books without reducing the services it provides.
Mr Linning-Karp said it could not be done without changing services but added that was not the same as reducing services.
He said: “The truth is in healthcare it is very hard to stop doing things.
“It is far preferable to change the way we do things to hopefully improve quality and also save money.”
The senior health official gave the example of patients with no criteria to reside.
As reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, in mid-January the trust had almost 300 patients in acute beds with no reason to be on wards.
Mr Linning-Karp said reducing this number was the right thing for the patients, the system and the taxpayer.
Cllr Payne said the scale of the overspend begged the question how the trust got into the position it finds itself in.
He said trusts in other parts of the country were not experiencing the same financial challenge.
Mr Linning-Karp said: “I think that’s a really difficult question to answer partially because I’m not cited on other trusts and what position they are in.
“I think as we came out of Covid we absolutely had a financial challenge and we’re working very hard on savings.
“We delivered £90million of cost improvement this year to continue to address the deficit but we haven’t managed to do that entirely.”