NHS is facing ‘extraordinary challenges’, health board chief tells MSPs

Jeff Ace said his board, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, technically could not afford one tenth of its staff.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway chief executive Jeff Ace has spoken out about the ‘quite extraordinary’ challenges the health service is facing (Jeff Moore/PA)

An NHS boss has spoken out about the “quite extraordinary” challenges the health service is currently facing – telling MSPs that his health board technically cannot afford a tenth of the staff working for it.

Jeff Ace, chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway, said the difficulties facing the NHS at the moment were “not part of our usual ‘times are difficult’ financial pressures”.

He told MSPs on Holyrood’s Health Committee that NHS Dumfries and Galloway would have a deficit this year “for the first time this century”.