THE financial cost of the fight against coronavirus in the Borders has been laid bare in an NHS report.

The Scottish Borders health and social care integrated joint board (IJB), which is funded as a partnership between the Scottish Borders Council and NHS Borders, is facing a significant financial overspend of £7.359m.

During the 2019/20 financial year, the IJB spent £11.5m on combatting coronavirus, and has spent a further £2.5m in the first quarter of 2020/21.

The IJB has already been bailed out before by NHS Borders and the council, when during the 2019/20 financial year it received £6.255m and £883,000 respectively.

At a meeting of the IJB last Wednesday (September 23), board members heard how the partnership is on course to once again need financial help, as it is forecasting an overspend of £7.359m.

A report, sent to board members ahead of the meeting, reads: “Additional costs of COVID-19 to date, together with the opportunity cost of undeliverable financial plan savings, continues to outweigh any financial benefit and reduced cost within core operational services attributable to a reduction in activity during the initial months of the pandemic.

“This position may be mitigated considerably when a clearer picture of likely funding allocations from the Scottish Government emerges.

“It is expected that at the time of reporting next to the IJB, some clarity will have been given, at least for the first quarter of the financial year.”

Appearing at the meeting, Andrew Bone, chief financial officer for NHS Borders, said: “The forecast deficit relates to the NHS functions.

“There’s basically three major components of that. The biggest element is in relation to the non-delivery of savings, basically £4.3m of the NHS forecast relates to non-delivery of savings.

“On top of that, we have the COVID expenditure. There are substantial costs against COVID, all of the allocations have been directed very much at the social care elements of the partnership.

“We’re still awaiting confirmation of any NHS allocations. We’re hoping that will make a material difference.

“The core position of the NHS at the moment is slightly underspent, there’s actually a slight underspend if you exclude COVID spending.

“I think it’s reasonable to assume there will be a financial pressure at the end of the year that the board will have to have plans to address, and that’s subject to ongoing discussion with Scottish Government.

“I’m not in a position at this stage to say that we can deliver, or support the IJB to deliver, a break even.”