The chief executive of the trust which runs Scunthorpe and Grimsby Hospitals said the organisation will not leave financial special measures this year, despite setting an exit target for 2019.
Dr Peter Reading, who runs Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLaG) and set the target last year, said the trust ran into “serious underlying problems” with its finances which hampered its performance in 2018/19.
Last year, the trust missed its overspend target by £20 million due to staffing costs and “unexpected expenditure”.
Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby. Picture: Calvin Robinson.
Dr Reading admitted that the work done by the organisation to try and manage its staffing costs was “not as sophisticated as it should have been”.
He added that it was “unwise” to set the target for the organisation to leave financial special measures this year.
“I don’t think we will get out by the end of 2019,” he said.
“The reason for that is very sadly we discovered some serious underlying problems in our finances which had not been fully exposed.
“They came to light around Christmas time and, to be honest, they sabotaged our financial performance at the end of last year. We went down quite badly right at the end of the year.”
Scunthorpe General Hospital, Church Lane, Scunthorpe. Picture: Calvin Robinson for Lincolnshire Reporter.
The trust has since been tasked by the Department of Health and Social Care to reach a deficit of £32 million in the next five years.
It currently has an underlying overspend of £51 million forecast for this year.
Dr Reading said the new targets are “achievable” and it recognised that the trust has structural costs that will “never be eliminated”.
He added that the government’s plan reflected that the trust is “always going to have quite a substantial deficit”.
“I believe it is a realistic target,” he said.
“We’re going to have to work hard and it’s not going to be easy. We’re still going to have to achieve an efficiency target every year which is higher than in trusts that are more stable in their finances.
“It’s going to be tough, but I believe the way that we are organising things now, the way we are mobilising this organisation and in the way we are working with our partners across the region is so much stronger that I believe it is realistic for us to achieve that.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite