CLINICAL Commissioning Groups in North Yorkshire look set to wipe out £8 million of inherited debt in one year.

Figures from the four separate CCGs in the region show they are forecasted to write off the debts inherited from the old Primary Care Trust system last April, and are now expected to make a small surplus.

Vale of York CCG looks due to write off the £3.5 million debt it inherited and hopes to finish with a forecasted surplus of just under £2.1 million.

Significant savings have been made through examining efficiency and cutting some services not believed to be essential, such as some outpatient follow-up appointments, the CCG said.

Prof Alan Maynard, chairman of the Vale of York CCG, said it had been working with the public to improve and reshape services.

He said: “Every move we do is firstly to involve patients in the system that can tell us about the system, warts and all, and we are also having public meetings”.

Harrogate and the Rural District CCG looks set to write off its £1.8 million debt and Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby CCG should write off its £2.4 million debt and end with a surplus of £750,000.

Meanwhile, Scarborough and Ryedale CCG should have paid off £1.5million in debt and end with a surplus of £1.45 million.

However, it has recently been revealed how Government rules over targets cost hospitals across the country money which was kept by the commissioning groups. York Hospital lost £8.5 million of vital emergency service funding in NHS fines, it has been reported.

A total of £6 million of the loss last year was due to the so-called marginal tariff – intended to discourage over-reliance on A&E, meaning hospitals only get 30 per cent of the costs of treating a patient after certain numbers have been admitted.

Hospital chief executive Patrick Crowley said that would pay for six wards’ worth of nurses in a year, or 50 to 60 consultants.

The hospital also lost £2.5 million in fines for re-admitting patients it had discharged, but who then needed further treatment within 30 days.

Vale of York CCG said the money had been reinvested into other services at York Hospital.

York Central MP Hugh Bayley congratulated the CCGs over reducing the deficit it had.

However, he suggested Vale of York CCG may have achieved savings by cutting spending on patients.

Mr Bayley said: “Something like £5 million less has been spent on treating patients from the Vale of York CCG area than was spent out in the old days of the PCT.”