ST Helens Clinical Care Commissioning Group is at “extreme risk” of failing to meet its financial duties, a new report has said.

The financial progress of the CCG, which is responsible for planning healthcare for St Helens, was discussed at its governing body meeting on Friday.

At the end of the fourth quarter, the risk of the CCG’s not meeting its financial duties has been given a score of 20 – equating to “extreme risk”.

Its ability to meet demand has also been given a risk score of 20 for the third consecutive quarter.

A report for month 11 (Feb 6, 2018 to Mar 6, 2018) says the CCG has a year to date deficit of £7.880 million.

The planned deficit at month 11 was £4.572 million, meaning the CCG is off plan by £3.308 million.

The CCG forecasts that if all mitigations are delivered as expected it will deliver a planned £4.987 million deficit control total.

However, it says there remains a “significant risk” due to the levels of unscheduled care demand in the system.

The CCG’s financial plan for 2018/19, which aims to achieve an in-year breakeven position against a notified allocation of £334.6 million, was also discussed at the meeting.

Based on the levels of demand experienced in 2017/18 and expected national and local growth levels, the CCG will need to make QIPP (quality, innovation, productivity and prevention) savings of £14.7 million (4.4 per cent) to deliver the in-year breakeven target.

NHS England views any QIPP levels of above two per cent to be “high risk”. To date the CCG has quantified £10.6 million of savings, leaving £4.1 million to be quantified.

The report says that due to the “significant” level of unidentified QIPP, decisions will need to be made to identify further savings areas.

It says no services will be affected immediately, but given the financial challenge, the CCG may make decisions that affect the range of services currently commissioned.

Professor O’Brien said the CCG and its partners must find new ways of working in order to meet the challenges.

She said: “The gaps are growing, demand is growing so we have to try to work differently to bridge the gap.”

The financial plan for 2018-19 was submitted in draft to NHS England on March 8. The final governing body approved financial plan is scheduled to be submitted by April 30.