NHS Dumfries and Galloway could spend as much as £8 million tackling coronavirus pandemic

Tackling the coronavirus pandemic could cost the health board as much as £8 million.

And NHS Dumfries and Galloway is facing a potential overspend of nearly £16 million.

The figures were outlined at Monday’s health board meeting in a report by deputy finance director Graham Stewart.

He revealed that so far more than £4.5 million has been spent in the current financial year on tackling Covid-19, with costs ranging from equipment and IT to additional staffing and extra beds for patients.

By the end of the financial year in March, it is expected the bill will be more than £7.8 million.

Mr Stewart also revealed that remobilising the health service following the suspension of services is set to cost another £6.6 million.

That includes restarting elective services and planning for winter.

He said that, based on a review of the first quarter of the financial year, the health board is facing a potential overspend of £15.7 million.

He noted that figure was based on “significant assumptions” over additional Scottish Government funding being provided to help with the cost of tackling coronavirus and getting the health service back up and running.

He describes it as a “critical board risk” with officials due to meet the Scottish Government in the coming weeks.

The health board was due to make savings of more than £26 million in the current financial year. £11 million had been found before the pandemic, with a further £15.5 million worth of cuts still to be identified.

But Mr Stewart warned that now only £3 million of savings had been identified, the other £8 million classified as “savings slippage because of the re-prioritisation of our resources to tackle Covid-19”.