A multi-million pound Covid-19 bill could leave the Western Isles health board “with a mountain to climb” if the sum is not refunded by the Scottish Government, a local councillor has said.
New figures released by NHS Western Isles show the service predicts a total spend of almost £3m from March 2020 to March 2021.
Kenny John Macleod, vice-chair of the Western Isles Integration Joint Board and councillor for An Taobh Siar Agus Nis, said any deficit not reimbursed by Holyrood will leave the struggling health board in an “extremely concerning” position.
He added that the figure, which is made up of a revenue and capital spend of more than £2.9m, could rise as the pandemic continues.
It is also understood NHS Western Isles has experienced a two year funding gap and has been running at a deficit over the last two years – resulting in the cutback of some non-specialist consultancy services.
The Western Isles has reported only a small amount of Covid-19 cases since March, however an outbreak of more than 40 cases was confirmed in South Uist last week.
Mr Macleod said his region had been “very fortunate” in the early stages of the pandemic, but added that “things are changing” due to the discovery of the new cluster.
He said: “There will be additional costs on or above those core base costs we already have and if that were not to be refunded by the government that would significantly add to our problems of trying to balance budgets in the future.
“The position we were in pre-Covid-19 was that the funding from the Scottish Government was insufficient, we did some balances.
“But in order to produce a balanced budget for the past two years we’ve had to use and deplete to zero all our reserves.
“We’re hoping that we will balance out at the year’s end, but we’ve needed to make substantial efficiencies and budget cuts, which is a challenge that we will continue to face and these Covid-19 costs just add to that mountain that we have already to climb”.
A Scottish Government spokesman said health secretary Jeane Freeman had “consistently made clear” the Scottish Government will provide the necessary funding across health and care services to recognise the additional costs of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He added: “On September 29 the health secretary announced funding of £1.1 billion across NHS Boards and Integration Authorities, of which NHS Western Isles received its share, to meet costs arising from the response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This has been allocated to meet expenditure to date and to provide funding for future months. We have committed to further reviews of funding in November and January.”
NHS Western Isles was approached for comment but did not respond.
