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Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Trust in 'special measures' over £30m budget deficit

Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby Credit: ITV News Calendar

The NHS Trust which runs hospitals in Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Goole has been placed in financial special measures after forecasting a £30m deficit during the current financial year.

The Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust will now see a Financial Improvement Director appointed by NHS Improvement who will have the job of overseeing a robust new financial plan.

The Trust is only the third in the country to be placed in financial special measures.

“Despite our best efforts to reduce our deficit our financial position has continued to deteriorate over the year and has recently worsened due to the significant pressures on our services.

An increase in non-elective patient activity (i.e A&E attendances) in quarter four and a high medical vacancy rate has led to increased expenditure on nurse staffing and locum doctors. These pressures on our services has also seen a drop in our planned activity (operations and procedures) and therefore our income.

While our cost improvement programme has delivered savings of £12.4m to date and is expected to deliver £13.7m by the end of this financial year, our current forecasted deficit for the end of the financial year is £30million (against a planned deficit of £12.2 million)."

– Richard Sunley, Interim Chief Executive, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust

The Trust says it welcomes the additional support which it will now receive and it will continue to work with partners around the Humber to deliver local health services.