HEALTH budgets in Warrington will be cut by more than £6m this year.

NHS Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group will be required to make savings totalling £6.1m in 2018/19.

Chief finance officer outlined the CCG’s financial plan for the following year during its annual general meeting on Wednesday, September 12.

He said: “Our plan for this year requires us to deliver £6.1m worth of savings.

“That’s two per cent, which is considered by NHS England to be the most a CCG should aim for in any year.

“It gets more and more difficult each year to do that, because we’re delivering efficiencies on efficiencies.

“In the year to date, we are on plan but already we are seeing some financial risks emerge in the acute sector.

“It’s going to be quite a challenging year for us.”

It comes after £7.8m was slashed from health budgets in 2017/18, although the CCG

Mr Cooper also outlined the CCG’s financial performance during last year in the meeting at its headquarters in Birchwood, including a £400,000 surplus.

He added: “Despite that surplus, we did have a turnaround regime throughout the year.

“We set ourselves a target to deliver £8.4m worth of efficiency savings last year, and we actually delivered £7.8m.

“At the same time, we still invested in some of our key priority areas such as primary care and mental health.

“It’s been a successful year, but not without its challenges.”