Savings options for the 2027/28 Aberdeen City Health & Social Care Partnership budget
Published: 11/09/2026 08:00Aberdeen City Health & Social Care Partnership (ACHSCP) plans and delivers adult health and social work services, and some hospital services, for the citizens of this city.
We will have a budget of approximately £465 million for the forthcoming financial year – and we will need to make savings of £5 million to balance the books by year’s end
Our governing body, the Integration Joint Board (IJB), will finalise the 2027/28 budget, including savings, on Tuesday 16 March 2027.
Board members will take into account the feedback from the forthcoming public engagement on the savings options, which runs from Friday 11 September 2026 until 09 October 2026, along with the views of staff on the options.
The public consultation will involve face-to-face and online engagement with the public to gather their views – and an online questionnaire which lays out the options, inviting people to explain the potential impact of each one on them, their families and those they care for.
2027/28 budget savings options for public consultation:
Shifting the balance of care in Specialist rehabilitation
We are reviewing how rehabilitation services are delivered to ensure they remain sustainable, effective, and responsive to future needs. Increasing demand for health and social care services, ongoing workforce challenges, and the need to modernise some care environments require new approaches to service delivery.
Evidence shows that rehabilitation delivered closer to, or within, a person's home can improve outcomes, promote independence, and reduce the need for prolonged hospital stays. Advances in digital technology also create opportunities to enhance recovery, monitoring and rehabilitation across both inpatient and community settings.
This combines to give us the chance to redesign services in a way that delivers better outcomes while making best use of available resources.
To support a more sustainable model, we are proposing changes to inpatient rehabilitation, including moving the Neuro-Rehabilitation Unit to the Specialist Rehabilitation Centre to provide specialist expertise and resources within one building.
The proposal includes closer integration between Specialist rehabilitation services, building on the collaborative ways in which these teams already work. Alongside inpatient changes, we are also exploring opportunities to strengthen and reinvest in community-based rehabilitation pathways.
Social care charging
ACHSCP previously consulted on Social Care Charging Policy in the 2025/26 budget consultation, with the outcome subsequently considered and approved.
The updated charging policy aims to ensure a fair and consistent approach to financial contributions towards services and supporting those who are least able to contribute. Financial assessments will continue to be undertaken, with individual circumstances and affordability considered. The implementation of the approved policy will contribute towards the long-term sustainability of adult social care services and ensure resources remain available to support people with eligible care and support needs.
The new policy uses an individual budget-based model, so that anyone with an eligible need for a funded service will be told the full financial value of their service(s). Where charges apply, these are based on a contribution to the value of these services. The original approach was for the client to be charged up to a maximum of 70% of the total cost in 2025/26 and moving to 100% in 2029/30. Implementation of the 70% charge was delayed to April 2027. Where a client’s available income is lower than the cost of the service, they will not be charged more than they can afford.
Prescribing efficiencies
ACHSCP will continue efforts to drive down prescribing costs, which total more than £50 million per year in the city.
The people of Aberdeen have played a significant part in helping us to control our costs over the recent period and they deserve thanks for their efforts to work with GP and pharmacy teams around medication switches and reducing wastage. The public’s understanding of our prescribing challenges has allowed us to make a shift from prescribing branded medications which are often expensive to more cost-effective generic options which are just as effective.
We can do more in 2027/28 to continue that shift – with a guarantee that any changes in medication for an individual patient will always be made on a case-by-case basis and following a full review of the patient’s needs.
There are other areas of our work where savings have been identified which are relevant to our staff but which do not need to be part of the public-facing engagement. These include:
- A vacancy and workforce redesign to gradually reduce our staffing total.
- More services and SLT management posts being shared with partners across Grampian.
- Reviewing commissioned services to make sure they continue to meet people’s needs, provide good quality support and offer best value. This includes looking at the adult mental health supported living framework, how supported living arrangements are working, and whether services are flexible, outcomes-focused and sustainable for the future.
- Making sure social care resources are used fairly, consistently and sustainably. This means looking carefully at whether support is based on people’s assessed needs and whether eligibility is being applied consistently. We will build on work already underway in adult social work, including reviews of high-cost and out-of-area care packages. This is not about making blanket cuts to care and support. It is about making clear, evidence-based decisions while continuing to meet our legal duties and protect people who need ongoing support because of their needs, risks or circumstances.
This list of options has been drawn up following a significant level of detailed internal discussion at all levels across ACHSCP.
The savings options make clear practical sense in terms of securing efficiencies and achieving best value for the public money which funds our services and staff – while at the same time protecting and enhancing the vital services which mean so much to so many people
But equally clearly, challenges lie ahead to make the necessary savings to balance the books, which we have a legal duty to do.
Public feedback helped us to draw up our current 2026/27 budget – and we are making steady progress on achieving the necessary £14 million budget savings for this current financial year.
Now, we are engaging with the people of Aberdeen once again to help us draw up an equitable balanced budget and £5 million in savings for 2027/28 – and continue to deliver the essential services upon which our citizens rely, within the very tight finances that we have available.
Fiona Mitchelhill
Chief Officer, Aberdeen City Health & Social Care Partnership