BATTLING coronavirus cost the local NHS more than £23 million last year, new figures have revealed.

Data for the eight months up to November 2020 shows Frimley Health Foundation Trust has spent millions on running costs including expenditure on staffing, testing and decontamination.

The Trust — which runs Heatherwood hospital in Ascot, Frimley Park hospital near Camberley and Wexham Park hospital in Slough — saw a “material rise” in covid-related expenditure from September to November.

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According to a Trust report, this was because of additional workforce costs, treating “significantly higher numbers of covid inpatients” and having to open a new intensive care area at Wexham Park for eight more beds.

The largest spend has come from staffing costs — Frimley Health has spent £9.2 million from the start of the pandemic to November.

This is an increase of more than £2 million from September.

Virus testing at NHS laboratories has cost the Trust £3.9 million in the eight months to November (up around £900,000 since September).

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Decontaminating the Trust’s sites has fetched a fee of £1.2 million so far, according to latest data.

And due to a higher sickness absence among staff, an extra £1.6 million has been shelled out over the eight months to November as bosses recruited cover.

Covid-related expenditure made up 4.7 per cent of the Trust’s total operating costs (£501 million) to November 2020.

In November, the government announced a £3 billion covid recovery fund for the NHS.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the cash would include £1 billion to waiting lists and around £1.5 billion to ease existing pressures on the NHS, according to bmj.com.

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A Frimley Health report indicated with the Trust is expected to breakeven by the end of the financial year.

Nigel Foster, Frimley’s director of finance, said: “Since [September] the forecast around covid expenditure has increased.

“So we’re now expecting for the second half of the year to spend as incremental cost about £15 million on covid expenditure.

“The balancing positive news is that the funding that we’ve got from the system has been increased to match that level of expenditure that we think we’re going to be spending for the rest of this year, so that balances off.

“The one big caveat that I want to keep flagging in people’s minds is that once we’ve got through this covid phase, once we return to more normal financial arrangements, I think there will be a really, really big challenge for us as a trust and as a system.

“It’s something we’re going to need to keep in the back of our minds -- we’re going to be in a very tough financial world once we start to come out of the reality of the covid experience.”

Mr Foster was speaking at a meeting of Frimley Health’s Board on Friday, January 15.