Plymouth healthcare provider Livewell Southwest CIC has bounced back into profit after the Government refunded £5m it had to pay nurses. The company, which employs almost 2,800 people, has recorded a pre-tax surplus of £6.48m after making a pre-tax loss of £5.24m the previous year.
It made a huge loss last year after having to pay staff bonuses following the nurses’ strike in 2023. But following the Agenda for Change pay deal between the Government and the NHS Staff Council, the huge staff bonuses Livewell had to pay have now been refunded by the Government.
Livewell’s newly published annual report and consolidated financial statements for the year to the end of March 2024 said it received £5m and stressed that it had made the payments to staff when it wasn’t sure it was going to get the money back.
In November 2023 it was announced that hundreds of Plymouth healthcare workers would finally receive a bonus of at least £1,655 after the Government’s U-turn. The Department of Health and Social Care said a funding package for non-NHS organisations, including Livewell, to pay the bonus had been agreed after the nurses’ industrial dispute.
Livewell director Dr Karen Cook wrote in the new annual report: “The surplus generated in 2023/24 puts the organisation back where it should be had the funding been made available when the pay award was first announced.”
Livewell provides health and social care services across Plymouth, the South Hams and West Devon. The annual report showed Livewell’s turnover jumped to £166.154m, from £153.679m.
Staff costs were up to £120m from £117.58m as staff numbers rose to 2,794 from 2,681. Of those staff, 689 are nurses or midwives.
Livewell’s 17 directors were paid a combined £1.134m. The highest paid director earned £212,805, plus £24,015 in pension contributions and saw basic salary increase by almost £23,000. Just five other directors earned more than £100,000 each, while six were paid below £25,000.
The annual report also said recruitment and retention “as is common across NHS services” continues to be a challenge. But its vacancy factor had fallen from 13.89% to 9.47% and it credited various recruitment initiatives.
Dr Cook said: “The group seeks to continue to maintain recruitment levels and reduce usage of agency staff. In the past year the organisation focused on improving retention rates and reducing staff turnover to do this.”
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