NHS Highland’s finance director has insisted the board will break even this year.
This is despite facing a projected £12.3million overspend.
Finance boss Nick Kenton told a health board meeting yesterday that the forecast was down from £15.6million in June.
Mr Kenton insisted that the gap would be plugged by the end of March next year.
Raigmore Hospital in Inverness remains the biggest finance blackhole and has made only a slight improvement from July.
The north’s flagship hospital faces a estimated £9.9million potential overspend.
Board member Dr Michael Foxley questioned why Raigmore alone was worth around 80% of the total.
He asked for the reasons for this to be set out in order to allay public concerns.
Continuing pressures include waiting-list targets and the use of locums to fill vacancies.
The north and west area has an estimated potential £2.4million overspend because of locums, out-of-hours costs and the cost of adult social care.
The south and mid unit has yet to find £1.4million of savings in adult social care.
Mr Kenton told the meeting that the improvement resulted from a wide variety of measures, including a detailed review of cost pressures, the tightening of controls over the use of medical locums and more cost-effective prescribing and procurement of goods.