AN increase in admissions to hospitals run by the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust meant the trust needed £4.8 million more than planned for last year.

The three Clinical Commissioning Groups in the county, Redditch and Bromsgrove, Wyre Forest and South Worcestershire, budgeted £265.8m for services from the hospitals run by the Trust, including Worcestershire Royal and the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch.

But the groups spent £270.6 million with the hospitals trust, in the last financial year, according to a report given by by Mark Dutton, chief finance officer, to a board meeting of the three groups.

It said: “While the over-performance is across most areas of delivery, the main area of over-performing is emergency admissions.

"It is worth noting that a significant proportion of the Worcestershire Acute over-performance predominately relates to South Worcestershire CCG.”

This a reference to increased emergency admissions at Worcestershire Royal Hospital over the last year, and “over-performance” in this context means an overspend on the planned budget.

Admissions to A&E at the hospitals of 165,372 people cost £18,283,000 – that’s £84,000 more than its budget.

The biggest gap between budget and actual spending was in non-elective inpatient care, which cost £4.8m than budgeted for.

Despite the overspend, two of the three trusts have run a surplus last year, and also managed to very nearly meet challenging savings targets.

South Worcestershire had £1.2m left over at the end of the year, and has a cumulative surplus of £8.6 m.

Wyre Forest’s GGC underspent over the year by £0.4m and has a cumulative surplus of £3.4m, but Redditch and Bromsgrove CCG had a deficit of £4.8m, last year which was less than a planned deficit of £5.5m. The group’s overall cumulative deficit is £8.3m.

Nevertheless against a target of £36m of savings, the three groups together have managed to make efficiencies of £34.4m, £200,000 higher than forecast. Mr Dutton said: “That’s a great achievement against very challenging targets.”

Mark Dutton, added: “As part of national planning rules, all CCGs across the country are required to deliver a financial surplus of one per cent at the end of each year. This surplus is then returned to CCGs in the following year for them to deliver a one per cent surplus again.”