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Gwent’s health board is on track for a £60 million overspend this financial year.

The projection, which is the ‘worst case’ scenario planned by health bosses is based on a £5m overspend last month.

Robert Holcombe, the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board’s finance chief, said its ‘best case’ scenario is a £48.9m deficit.

He told the board’s May meeting it has already planned on making £40m in savings this year, but the health board would still be in the red.

He said staff were aware time is needed to generate planned savings and he said improvement on the April figures is expected.

In total it has £1.7 billion in funding from the Welsh Government for the current financial year. Any savings in excess of the planned £40m will contribute to reducing the £48.9m deficit.

Health board chair Ann Lloyd said the Welsh Government had set it a £13m deficit target.

A funding boost of £64.5m to the health board last financial year is conditional this year on it making progress towards the £13m deficit figure.

Independent board member Paul Deneen asked if the number of fit patients stuck in hospital beds, as there are no care plans in place for them to return home, is acknowledged by the Welsh Government when it looks at the board’s current spending.

Figures show there were 289 such patients at the end of April – costing more than £1m a month and around £15m over the year.

“That’s effectively another hospital of 289 patients we have to pay for who shouldn’t be part of our budget. That seems to be the elephant in the room of not only this health board,” said Mr Deneen.

Finance chief Mr Holcombe said some delays are due to the health board but said it is a nationally recognised issue.

According to the board, 45% of “blocked beds” are related to social care or packages of care, 28% “health related” and the remaining 27% due to factors such as family issues or nursing homes.

Significant costs issues during the first month of the year have included the average price of prescriptions rising to £7.44 “significantly above” the planned estimate of £7.29 – but Mr Holcombe said the cost can fluctuate.

Enhanced cleaning costs and others pressures associated with its many buildings were also highlighted, as were variable pay costs to cover sickness and vacancies on mental health wards and work to meet cancer targets.

Variable pay, which covers agency, bank staff and locums, was £6m in April, down from last year’s average of £7.75m a month. Total agency spend was £2.6m compared with £2.9m in March.

Chief executive Nicola Prygodzicz said the board last year had a financial deficit of £112m which was predicted to rise to £166m – but was eventually reduced due to additional funding from the Welsh Government.

She also said the board had made “good progress” on recruitment and retaining its existing staff and had last year reduced its bill for agency staff by £18m.

This year’s £40m savings plan includes £29.1m of identified savings, from staffing costs and medicines, and £11.4m of potential savings.