Fighting Covid has cost Western Trust up to £78m

A new Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) warehouse is allowing the Western Trust to distribute millions of items to Altnagelvin Hospital staff every month.

Prior to Covid-19, the Western Trust’s Performance and Service Improvement directorate team managed two emergency stores - one on each of the Altnagelvin Hospital and South West Acute Hospital Sites.

Both of these stores contained a small supply of PPE items including respiratory masks in preparedness for an emergency situation.

Speaking at Thursday’s Board Meeting, Chief Executive Dr Anne Kilgallen said: “During the pandemic the Trust responded to the increasing demands required for the provision of PPE - from the stepping up to nine internal smaller stores on the Acute Sites to the procurement of a large warehouse and development of processes for the supply and distribution of PPE.

“Currently the PPE Warehouse is distributing 1.4 million items of PPE per week throughout the Western Trust and independent Sector.”

This will ensure that staff and clients are kept safe in their daily activities.

Covid costs in the Western Trust after 10 months are £54.4m and projected to rise to £78m for the full year.

The main elements of the costs are additional staffing and pay costs, PPE, support for the Independent Sector, Loss of Income and a range of other costs.

The meeting was told that all Trusts are actively working with the Department of Health (DoH) and Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) to achieve greater clarity on funding approaches.

The main approach to date is that PPE is separately funded from a specific allocation, with all other costs to be covered by a generic allocation from the Department of Finance.

Speaking at Thursday’s Board Meeting, Director of Finance Neil Guckian said: “We are informed by DoH that there is sufficient funding currently in place to cover the Trust’s current Covid-19 cost projections.

“We will work with DoH colleagues to ensure all business cases are reconciled to actual spend, and funded accordingly.

“Our current projections for full year Covid costs are in the region of £78m.

“We are informed that DoH have adequate funding to cover this level of cost. PPE costs would represent approximately £26m of this total, and will be funded separately.”