HEALTH and council staff have driven down their planned cuts for 2024-25 by nearly £4 million, it was revealed at the North Ayrshire Integration Joint Board.

The projected outturn was a year-end overspend of £6.697m (2.1 per cent) for 2024-25, now reduced to £2.995m through already identified financial recovery actions.

The main areas of pressure include care at home, residential placements for children, physical and learning disability care packages, supplementary staff in wards, staff costs in Montrose House and Unplanned Activities (UnPACs) within the lead partnership for mental health.

Whilst the overall projected outturn position has not significantly changed, there are material movements within services. They include: improvement - children’s residential places, £352,000; and deterioration - care home places £63,000 and learning disability placements £320,000.

There is a requirement to agree on a recovery plan to secure a balance.

The care at home budget has increased significantly since 2019-20 with an overall increase of £9.8m over that period. However most of this increase is directly related to pay inflation with the only additional funding for additional capacity being £3.4m to support with winter pressures. 

Kerry Logan, IJB head of service (health and community care), said:  “A £1m savings target was identified for the care at home service to deliver in 24-25.

“The operations team are working through a plan to achieve with a target of £850,000 this year but we expect that we will deliver a fuller saving for 25/26.

“Care at home plays an important role in allowing adults and mainly older people to live at home in the community and provides services across a range of needs – from highly complex packages to smaller supports, which continues to keep people safe and allows them to live in their own homes.

“The planning has been critical and what operational teams are proposing is the safest most achievable and manageable plans."

She admitted: “There will be an impact on groups but this has identified a number of mitigations services will take to reduce the impact of this.

“We will work to make sure those who are most in need are helped including those requiring  end of life care, hospital discharges and support and public protection.

“A reduction of around 1,000 staffing hours will be achieved weekly alongside other support costs staff houses through vacancies and turnovers.”

North Coast Conservative councillor Tom Marshall asked what the impact of cuts would have on constituents who have raised concerns about the service with him.

Ms Logan replied: “We do expect the impact could be up to a three percent increase in the number of people waiting for services or the length of time they are waiting.

“That will all be very dependent on the level of demand we have for care at home supports.

"Whilst we are aware more people will wait or people might have to wait longer, it is really important we focus on the measures we have in place to make sure the resource we have is prioritised to the right people and to those who are most critically in need of care at home.”