A REPORT into the finances of Northumberland's health commisioners has predicted an uncertain future due to the difficulty in estimating the underlying financial position because of the coronavirus crisis. 

At next week’s meeting of the NHS Northumberland Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) governing body, members will be discussing the draft final accounts for the last financial year.

The report says: "Any system transformation pathway changes that take place in the response to Covid-19 may have a significant impact upon the CCG’s future underlying position, and this needs to stay under continuous review until this becomes clearer as 2020-21 develops."

Elsewhere in the report, it says the coronavirus crisis hasd a ‘limited’ impact on the 2019-20 budget for Northumberland’s health commissioners.

Overall, the CCG, which buys and plans the county’s healthcare, will report a small underspend of £200,000 on its almost £560million budget, although it once again carries forward its historic deficit of £58million.

The report explains that ‘the financial impact of Covid-19 on the final 2019-20 CCG position was limited’ due to the fact the finacial year ended on March 31. 

An additional £109,000 was spent by GP practices on updating facilities in response to COVID-19, additional staff overtime and locum cover for staff having to self-isolate.

Under the CHC section, there was an increase in costs of £104,000 due to the introduction of the programme by which patients are discharged from hospital without assessment to free up beds, with the NHS currently picking up a proportion of these costs.

However, both of these are subject to national support, and the total of £213,000 was reimbursed to the CCG by NHS England/Improvement within the accounting period.

According to the report, the only area where there was uncertainty in 2019-20 relating to Covid-19 was in prescribing, following advice that there was the possibility of a large increase in dispensing, due to at-risk patients requiring or requesting more than their normal quantities of drugs to be able to stay at home for an extended period.

The CCG therefore decided to increase the budget in March by about 29 per cent compared to the usual prescribing accrual for that month.