Improvement programme 

Our financial journey

What’s happening?

In 2017/18, the Trust continued to work towards each of its three strategic priorities - quality, people and money. This was nationally recognised and we are proud that we were selected to be one of the first eight Integrated Care Systems in the country. We are now working very closely with our ICS partners.

In our 2017-19 Corporate Plan we committed to getting back into financial surplus within three years.  There were a number of pressures on the Trust’s finances, including a very challenging winter, which meant that we did not deliver to this plan in 2017/18. Mitigating the risks presented by these additional pressures led to a year end position of a £5.4m deficit, this was £11.9m variance to plan.

The good news is that performance was good when considering the significant pressures the Trust faced, including increased demand for services across the health and social care economy which resulted in additional bed requirements and staffing levels being readjusted.

Despite this and the need to increase staff capacity to meet the 18 week Referral Time to Treatment, cancer referrals, A&E waiting time targets and winter pressures, the Trust was able to deliver its Agency Spend Cap set by NHSI. The limit was set to £12.066m and we were able to reduce our agency spend by £1.8m to £10.1m, which is well within the NHSI limit.

Our external auditors assessed that the Trust was unlikely to breakeven over a three year period, thereby breaching our statutory duty under the National Health Service Act 2006. However, we have plans in place to mitigate this situation in 2018/19.

Plans for 2018/19

As we move into the third year of our transformation programme, our strategic priorities of quality, people and money remain.

The Trust continues to focus on meeting the challenges set out in NHS England’s Next Steps Five Year Forward View. This is being done through the Trust being a key member and part of the Buckinghamshire Integrated Care System (ICS) which aims to reshape the way health and services is available to meet the demands being placed on them.

The Trust’s savings target remains challenging in the current climate, with active participation in the ICS helping to ensure that full impact of changes area understood in both the short and long term. There will be a continued focus on minimising levels of expenditure; including reducing the requirement for higher cost temporary staffing and taking into account the recommendations of the Lord Carter review on expenditure in the NHS.

y by continuing to work in this way will we achieve our ambition of becoming one of the safest healthcare systems in the country.