Friday 20 February 2009

Gleanings from BLPT Trust board papers part 1

These seem to have come online in the last couple of days. I've had the usual fun getting into them, given that many of the links are incorrect.

In the minutes for last month (here, not as linked from the online agenda), one non-executive director's comments are recorded thus:
EH was concerned that there was an adverse forecast for Corporate Services and Operations Management. Savings appeared to be made only from operational areas.
Interesting that. Money is being cut from operational areas (those directly affecting patients, it could be argued) and yet the Management side is identified as (presumably) overspending.
The response was:
CB [another Non-executive director] asked that more detail be provided of the problems in Corporate Services that had caused the overspend. HM [Medical Director] asked for the reasons for the Operations Management overspend. TD [Finance Director] said that she would be happy to provide the information and suggested that this should be discussed in detail at the Finance Committee.
Thus the reasons were not minuted as part of this set of minutes. There is no online record of the Finance Committee minutes either. The director who asked the original questions continued to express her concerns:
EH said that she would not be at the Finance Committee but was concerned that there was a continual pattern of overspend within Corporate Services when monies were needed for frontline services.

Indeed.

2 comments:

That's not my name! said...

And so it goes, C

More spending for senior management and front line services pay for that.

Is that what Trusts have to do to get Foundation Status?

Makes it all a mockery really.

Disillusioned said...

I hope it is not what Trusts have to do, but it certainly seems to be what our Trust has done - and all to no avail since it has failed to get close enough to even apply formally for Trust status.

The Trust Board agenda has, as I type, become unavailable / "not found". Maybe they are "sorting out" the links - I know someone from BLPT has already read this posting. It still astonishes me that nobody appears to test their agendas to make sure the links work.