Dudley hospital budgets to be reduced by £7m
More than £7 million will be removed from NHS budgets in Dudley during the next 12 months, as Dudley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) look to make additional savings during the 2015/16 financial year.
GPs are looking to bring down costs by reducing unnecessary emergency admissions to hospital and preventing bed blocking.
Bosses hope the new Urgent Care Centre, which opened at Russells Hall Hospital last month, will cut the number of people attending A&E when they don't need to be there.
Patients arriving at the centre, based in the emergency department, are assessed by a nurse who will decide whether they need to go to the urgent care centre or the emergency department.
If their condition is not believed to be urgent, they may be referred to their GP. Bosses hope to reduce the number of emergency admissions to save £2m.
The CCG is also working to reduce bed blocking which occurs when patients, often elderly, have to stay in hospital despite being fit to be discharged. This is because they are not well enough to return home and there is nowhere else for them to go.
In December, it was estimated bed blocking was costing the NHS in Dudley around £145,000 a month or £1,742,736 a year.
The delays can be for people waiting to be transferred to a residential or nursing care home because assessments need to be carried out and places found.
Health chiefs are now working to speed up the process to slash £600,000 from the budget.
It is estimated that at busy times, they can be up to 30 patients waiting to leave hospital despite being well enough.
Dudley CCG finance officer Matthew Hartland said: "Dudley Clinical Commissioning Group financial plan 2015/16 states we need to make savings to the amount of £7.2m.
"We are doing this in a number of ways, most of which are redesigning services to make them more efficient and to better meet patient's needs.
"The Urgent Care Centre is already producing efficiencies by reducing emergency admissions."
Other savings identified include reviewing its management of medicines to reduce wastage.
Last month GPs in Dudley were handed more power to manage the borough's £400m healthcare budget.
The CCG will work with NHS England to decide how the money is spent.
They will be buying patient services such as hospital care and physiotherapy. It was among some of the first organisations in the country to be given the go-ahead by NHS England.
