Aberdeenshire IJB set indicative budget for 2025/26
From Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership
The Aberdeenshire Integration Joint Board (IJB), which oversees the Aberdeenshire Health & Social Care Partnership (AHSCP) met yesterday to agree an indicative budget for 2025/26. The Board agreed a revenue budget of £422m for the delivery of health & social care services across Aberdeenshire.
The IJB agreed a package of savings proposals of nearly £19m with a request to NHS Grampian and Aberdeenshire Council to provide a financial recovery package of over £17m.
To meet the savings required, all community health & social care services will be tasked with ensuring a 2.5% saving across every budget line.
As part of the agreed savings the AHSCP will be undertaking several service reviews, including in-house Learning Disability Day services, Social Care Transport provision, Older Adult Activity Hubs in North Aberdeenshire, and a review of the 10 Community Hospitals across Aberdeenshire.
In addition, the IJB agreed to a proposal to move up to 70% of the current in-house home care provision to alternative suppliers and to the rationalization of the in-house Care Home and Very Sheltered Housing provision.
The budget also set out the Charging Policy for 2025/26 which will see a move to full cost recovery for chargeable services such as Telecare Alarms and Care Home places, from April 1st, 2025.
The IJB also agreed that the current Aberdeenshire Adult Neurodevelopmental Assessment service would cease, and a new, temporary service would be developed and brought back to a future IJB for approval at a lower cost.
Chair of the Aberdeenshire IJB, John Tomlinson, said: “This is the most challenging financial picture we have ever been presented with and the IJB has had to take some very difficult and tough decisions which will have consequences across Aberdeenshire.
“Officers have been working hard to bring budgets back into line throughout the last year and, despite strict financial controls, vacancy management and the implementation of the savings proposals we agreed last year, we have still overspent by over £2m per month. Clearly this is unsustainable, and we have made the decisions we need to now, to ensure future sustainability.
“The discussion in the room today and the questions that members of the IJB have asked have sought to ensure that we are fully aware of the impacts that the proposed savings will have.”
Vice Chair of the IJB, Cllr Anne Stirling, said: “We have asked our funding partners, NHS Grampian and Aberdeenshire Council, to support us with a financial recovery plan, without which we would have had to find closer to £36.5m of savings this year. Clearly, we cannot rely on our partners to keep funding our overspend as they too face significant budget pressures.
“Across health and social care, we are facing a perfect storm of ever-increasing demand for our services as our population ages along with high rates of inflation which have impacted on everything from the electric we use, to the food we provide in our Care Homes.
“The demography of Aberdeenshire shows that our over 65s will increase by 28% by 2030 and that the 85+ population is projected to rise by 18.6% by 2030. This has huge implications for our health and social care services and that the demand on our services will continue to increase over the coming years.”
Pam Milliken, Chief Officer for the Aberdeenshire Health & Social Care Partnership, said: “This coming year will be a very difficult one for us to navigate. We absolutely acknowledge the concerns that have been raised today about how we manage services whilst making the required savings and I know that all of us will work to ensure that we protect the most vulnerable in our communities.
“I would also like to acknowledge that this will be a concerning time for many of our staff and I whilst I cannot promise that there will be no redundancies as a result of these proposals, I can promise that we will work with our Union colleagues and will do all we can to support everyone through this process.”
Feature image – Stonehaven’s Edenholme is one of the care homes operated by AHSCP