{"id":803339,"date":"2026-10-15T11:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/803339\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:44:12","slug":"33-4m-deficit-at-worcestershire-acute-hospitals-nhs-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/803339\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a333.4m deficit at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Worcestershire Acute Hospitals <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worcesternews.co.uk\/news\/26633153.nhs-steps-safety-programme-launch-worcester\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NHS Trust<\/a>, which runs three hospitals in the county, is \u00a36.9m worse off than predicted almost halfway through the 2026\/27 financial year.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A report by Katie Osmond, interim chief finance officer, said the trust\u2019s pay bill had risen due to sickness, vacancies and leave cover.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>NHS: Worcestershire Royal Hospital (Image: Phil Wilkinson-Jones\/LDRS)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She said the amount of temporary staffing needed had not fallen, despite \u201csubstantive recruitment\u201d.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A board meeting on Tuesday heard that the benefits of recent recruitment would be felt in the coming months.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The trust also paid out \u00a3400,000 in severance payments to staff who agree to leave their jobs voluntarily as part of a mutually agreed resignation scheme, often used when organisations are restructuring or cutting costs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Ms Osmond said the upwards trajectory of the deficit was of \u201csignificant concern\u201d.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cWe are currently off-plan and hence the focus on recovery,\u201d she told board members.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cAs a result of our off-plan performance the national team have withheld our deficit support funding that was part of our planned position..\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThe drivers of that financial position remain consistent to previous months. They are primarily due to underdelivery against our delivery and efficiency programme.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cWe have delivered almost \u00a311m of cost efficiencies year-to-date but that\u2019s about \u00a34m less than we\u2019d planned to, so as a result of that and the overall position, we have instigated a financial recovery plan.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She said the trust was expecting a reduction in \u201cpremium\u201d agency and bank spend as it moves out of a \u201cdifficult summer period\u201d and into the autumn and winter.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The report also shows that only 53 percent of invoices were paid on time by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust in August.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The Better Payment Practice Code measures how promptly NHS organisations pay suppliers, with a target of 95 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs three hospitals in the county, is \u00a36.9m worse off than predicted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-803339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}