Hospital heating bills will soar to over £1 million

The increased cost could hardly have come at a more challenging time for the board as it was already facing major financial challenges, due to deep-seated problems with an ageing population and delayed discharges.

All three hospitals in the Western Isles – Stornoway, Balivanich and Barra – are reliant on heating oil, but the costs have risen significantly in the last couple of months due to the disruption in global supplies.

Speaking at last week’s board meeting, Debbie Bozkurt, director of finance, said: “Obviously inflation is running high and with utilities, from now and into 2026-2027, we are seeing very high costs of fuel oil and heating oil.

“We are very unusual as a board in that our hospitals are all heating oil and that has doubled in price. If you think we were paying well over £500,000 a year for our heating oil, we are going to see that double, with the cost pressures coming in 2026/2027.”

She told the board that “obviously” they already have “financial pressures with depopulation and the changing population”.

She continued: “It costs a lot more money to provide health care and social care to an ageing population and we are looking at a £7m difference in 13 years, just because the population has aged – more orthopaedic cases, more renal cases, more cancer patients, etc.

“The other area we have pressure in is in delayed discharges. It’s been one of the highest this year. Notionally, it will probably reach a cost of £3 million.”

While Ms Bozhurt said that they will achieve a break-even position, it was clear that going forward this is going to be much harder to achieve.

In a report prepared ahead of last week’s meeting, she said: “NHS Western Isles have worked hard to offset the (financial) gap and the reported underlying gap.

“Most of the savings to offset these costs are achieved from vacancies we hold either due to poor workforce demographics or deliberate freezing of support services, so core clinical services and patient treatments are protected.”

She said that they have had to “work hard at digital solutions for care and have undertaken numerous actions to turn services around to reduce costs and improve patient experience”.

“NHS Western Isles have already reduced off island referrals by buying in visiting services, employing extra orthopaedic surgeons, running our own Renal Satellite Unit and undertaking chemotherapy where safety regulations allow, for example,” the report said. “The Board is shortly due to go live with a MRI Scanner, the costs being neutral through identifying saving from off island referrals and savings in patient travel.

“NHS Western Isles have worked hard in very difficult circumstances to bring the budget to a break-even position with efficiency plans being in place, little use of nursing agencies, none in any ward setting, rigid grip and control and use of some of NHS reserves related to IJB reserves.”

Meanwhile, Ms Bozhurt also revealed that the board is in dispute with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde over their Service Level Agreement, after demands were issued for increased payments for treating island patients.

“We were able to show them that we have a 34 per cent reduction in patients (being sent to Glasgow), so why would be paying 27 per cent extra?”

She said the Western Isles was “not alone in receiving and refusing the increased charges”.

It is understood that Glasgow and Clyde asked for increased payments due to their own financial challenges.