UH/0737

Extra funding comes to aid of Trust

ONCE again a timely one-off funding boost from the Government has come to the aid of the Sperrin Lakeland Trust as it struggles to repay its outstanding £1.6m debt.
Without the additional £1.745 million the Trust's share of an extra £17 million announced by Finance Minister, Mark Durkan before Christmas - it would not have been able to meet its target of being £500,000 in credit by March this year.
Director of Finance, Michael MacCrossan explained at a Trust meeting on Thursday last that they had set that target in order to pay back their deficit. But with overspends, in particular, one of more than £300, 000 in the goods and services and salaries areas, they would have been £375,000 behind where they wanted to be in January.
However, Mr MacCrossan said they then received the good news that they were to get a cut of the extra money.
Breaking down the extra funding, Mr MacCrossan said £550,000 would go towards paying the costs of the Omagh bomb, £225,000 would be used towards staffing and winter pressure costs and £312,000 would be used on capital equipment. The remaining money would be spent on travel, baseline pressures and revenue equipment.
Trust Chief Executive, Hugh Mills pointed to another more recent announcement by the Finance Minister of an additional £14 million. Again the Trust would expect to receive a share of this funding but as yet, no details on how the money is to be allocated have been revealed.
While the extra money was given a broad welcome, Dr Jim Kelly, Consultant Physician at the Erne injected a note of caution into the meeting. He said that it had to be emphasised that this was a one-off payment towards baseline and acute pressures which were recurring each year. Dr Kelly said that they had received a similar amount of additional funding the year before but it had to be remembered that it was not guaranteed and the fact was the Trust remained in a perilous condition.
This view was echoed by Director of Acute Services, Eugene Fee who said that as a Director, one of the most frustrating elements for him was trying to look at long term plans and budget accordingly but the problem remained that they needed funding on a long term basis.
With the Stormont Assembly up and running, one member Kevin Martin, suggested that they should start lobbying the politicians about the folly of doing things this way. He said short term funding such as this, was a very inefficient way of working and was simply a terrible waste of resources.