Council leader warns of health and care cuts

Urgent action is needed to reduce a predicted multi-million pound overspend by the organisation which provides health and social care services in the north-east, according to the leader of Aberdeenshire Council.

Councillor Gillian Owen said that under a worst-case scenario, Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership could be £26m over budget by the end of the current financial year.

Aberdeenshire Council would be liable for about £11m of that.

Ms Owen said the authority was focused on working with the partnership to reduce the overspend and warned it could affect care.

“It’s essential the partnership reduce this cost,” she said.

“Could this impact care? Yes. It has done with the closure of Westbank care home [in Oldmeldrum] and the reduction in the Minor Injuries Units during the evening.”

The opening hours of the minor injury units in Huntly, Peterhead and Fraserburgh were reduced in a bid to save money earlier this year.

John Tomlinson, chairman of the Aberdeenshire Integration Joint Board, said: “The Aberdeenshire IJB is in a difficult financial position as most organisations across the public sector are.

“In Aberdeenshire we have a population which is ageing at a considerably faster rate than the national average and this means that there are more people who require services now and in the future.

“Officers from the Aberdeenshire Health & Social Care Partnership are working incredibly hard to control budgets and implement agreed savings whilst still delivering the services which people need and they have the IJB’s full support in the work that they do.”

Aberdeenshire Council is due to discuss an update on its financial performance for the first quarter of the financial year on 26 September.