Healthcare funding likely to fall 'far short' of requirements

Manx Care says Treasury plans ignore impact of pay awards

The expected funding for the Island's health service next year falls far short of the projected spend and ignores the likely impact of pay awards.

That's from Manx Care ahead of the board's financial plan for the 2024-25 financial year being submitted to Treasury.

In its papers for July's board meeting, Manx Care says Treasury's planning for the year ahead is based on an inflation rate of 2% for income, pay costs and non-pay costs.

Along with other planning assumptions from Treasury, the healthcare provider expects this will give it a budget in the region of £310m from April 2024.

It warns this is 'far short' of what it expects to need to fund its services for the 12-month period, particularly with inflation expected to remain higher than 2%.

Manx Care says this has 'clear implications' on its ability to address its core priorities around safety, compliance and responding to issues raised by the Care Quality Commission, as well as rising demand.

It also stresses that this calls into question its ability to fund future requirements from the healthcare transformation project, and that work will be needed to understand the changes to service delivery required to meet the budgetary target.

The financial plan is due to be sent to Treasury in early August.

The report concludes by saying it's clear the financial outlook for Manx Care will continue to be 'exceedingly challenging' for this year, next year and beyond, with the board currently forecasting a £14.9m overspend for this financial year.