Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board must balance its books to secure £108 million of funding.

BCUHB has already saved £46m this year. If it can save an additional £17m it will break even, retaining an £82m additional funding stream from Welsh Government and unlocking £26m of support to mitigate its contribution to the Welsh Risk Pool.

Recent financial figures put BCUHB £29.3m in deficit. It is operating £11.4m behind its financial plan with a monthly overspend of around £2m. If that trend continues it will achieve and maybe surpass its predicted £43m deficit for 2026/27.

Departing BCUHB Finance Director Russ Caldicott said if the board can put measures in place to stem that monthly overspend and reach its £63m savings target, Welsh Government will unlock its full £108m funding package for BETSI.

“We’ve been having some robust conversations with our leadership teams and that is starting to give us some real positive outcomes,” Mr Caldicott told the bi-monthly meeting of the health board.

“We were asked to achieve £46m of savings by month five and we have achieved £47m.

“We need to recover the deficit – which stands at £11.4m but by the time recovery measures are in place will be between £13m and £14m.

“If we can find another £17m we will hit a break-even position and be able to resubmit our IMTP (Integrated Medium Term Plan).”

If it fails Welsh Government could withhold the £82m – putting BCUHB in an even deeper crisis.

Independent board member Sir Paul Lambert said time was of the essence.

“The next board meeting is November, which will be halfway through quarter three,” he said.

“A lot of the £2.6billion budget we have to spend is not flexible – in fact between £1.75bn and £2bn is pretty rock solid so we are looking for savings among the very top bit of flexibility.