DESPITE a savings plan amounting to £7 million the Western Trust still faces a projected £8 million deficit by the end of the current financial year.

And in outlining the ambitious plan to close the gap on spending this year, Chief Excutive Elaine Way has warned that while she is “confident” her Directors can deliver in their challenge to save £7 million, the proposals curently put forward are not set in stone and may not meet the savings mark.

“These (proposals) are likely to change or may not deliver some of the money that we were proposing,” she said during a media briefing on Friday.

Throughout the course of this year the Western Trust has continuously projected a year end deficit of £29.8 million -- the largest in its six year history.

But thanks to £14.8 million worth funding provided to the Trust through Stormont’s monitoring rounds in June and October this year, the deficit was halved to £15 million.

Instructed by the Health and Social Care Board to devise a plan to close the deficit further, the Chief Executive and her Directors have devised a plan amounting to £7 million.

Acknowledging that the cuts will no doubt have an impact on service delivery, Ms. Way said the Trust remained “absolutely determined to put patient and client safety at the centre of all that we do”.

As a result she said she was prepared to break away from the savings plan in order to keep patients safe.

“We will make decisions if there are safety issues that need to be addressed,” she assured.

In this regard it has been announced this week that a propsial to merge the palliative care unit at the Tyrone County Hpspial in Omagh with its rehabilitation unit will not go ahead.

But she warned that the cash gap left from removing this proposal from the table would have to be found “elsewhere”.

Providing background as to how the Trust has come to this bleak financial position Ms. Way said its geographical location meant it was having to spend more on locum and agency staff to fill staff rotas than any other Trust.

That, coupled with an ageing population, an increased demand for services both in hospitals and in the community and a reducing pot of money had meant the current financial position had been “inevitable” she said.

“The majority of people trained in Belfast tend to go for jobs in the greater Belfast area so we spend more on locums to cover crucial posts than elsewhere,” she explained.

“In this partiuclar year we spent an addition £4.4 million just covering additional costs of medical locums in this area.” The Chief Excutive outlined in particular the “very significant pressures” facing childcare services within the Trust too.

“We are now getting 900 to 1,000 new referals for childcare services every month. We have funding for 400 looked after children, but currently there are 528 children in our care. That is 128 over and above the funding levels.” Besides “significant nursing pressures” the Chief Executive said the Trust had also overspent on domicilliary care by around £2 million.

And while plans have been put in motion to terminate 77 temporary staff contracts by the end of March this year, Ms. Way has assured that no permanent jobs will be affected by the savings plan for the remainder of the financial year.

“We have no access to voluntary retirement, voluntary redundancy and no regional support for complusory redundancy. So anybody with a permanent contract with us, if they wish to stay with us, their job is not under threat between now and the end of March,” she said.

Of the 77 temporary staff to lose their posts, 24 have been told so far.

Six of these are in the Fermanagh area.

Ms. Way explained that a Scanning Bureau at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) would have to cease.

“It is an aspiration of the Trust that this would become a paperless hospital. We haven’t been given funding to make this happen at this time,” she said.

“We are working with staff to see how we can take this through differently.” Ms. Way said plans would be advanced in Mental Health Services for older people to have their care in their homes and community rather than a hospital setting.

She explained too, that there would be a shift in the delegated authority to bring in agency and bank staff as needed, from ward managers to directors or assistant directors.

In concluding, chairman of the Trust Board, Gerry Guckian said measures would be taken to limit the impact on service delivery.

“A lot of the ‘easy wins have already been considered,” he said, “The low impact or no impact proposals have already been exhausted at this stage.

“Almost none of these proposals have no impact.”