HEALTH care for South Devon residents cost £13 million more than the budget set by NHS England last year.

The South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group pre-agreed a £13m deficit with NHS England in the 2017/18 financial year. The group said it expects to balance its books within three years.

Clinical Commissioning Group represent GPs and buy emergency and non-emergency hospital care, and also pay for things such as community health care and mental health services.

The South Devon and Torbay CCG, which provides health care for 288,000 people, had a budget in 2017/18 of £401 million. The £13m deficit was pre-agreed with NHS England.

A spokesman said: ‘This agreed level of spending reflected the capacity needed to meet demand for services, particularly at Torbay and South Devon Hospital, and we have met this budget.

‘By continuing to implement our care model and the way services are delivered, providing integrated, high-quality care for people closer to home, we expect to return to a financially balanced position by no later than 2020/21.’

In the 2016/17 financial year the South Devon and Torbay CCG returned a deficit of £4 million.

Dr Kevin Dixon, who chairs Healthwatch Torbay, an independent body that scrutinises health care services, said: ‘We know that nationally the health and social care sector is experiencing widely-reported high demand on services and were aware that in response to this the South Devon and Torbay CCG agreed a budget deficit with NHS England for 2017/18, which was supposed to meet the demand for local services.

‘We encourage the public to share any concerns they have regarding this or the quality of local health and care services they use with us, so we can continue to raise any issues with both providers and the South Devon and Torbay CCG.’