NHS Grampian has been suggested by personal administration consultants KPMG to think about changing as much as 40% of its back-office workers with AI to economize.
The advice is one among 27 cost-cutting measures recommended by KPMG to the Scottish well being board as half of a bigger overview.
NHS Grampian is the worst financially performing board in Scotland, with present forecasts displaying it is going to overspend by nearly £50m in 2025/26.
In keeping with the board’s restoration plan, it wants to search out at the very least one other £4.2m of financial savings – on prime of the £60.4m already recognized – to satisfy authorities expectations by the tip of the monetary yr.
KPMG’s report, revealed on 9 October 2025, states that “a major alternative exists for NHSG to leverage the newest know-how developments (together with using GenAI instruments) to drive effectivity and right-size headcount”.
It provides that “leveraging know-how to assist or change a lot of the executive work carried out by workers” may save the board as much as £15.6m by 2030.
Pay prices for administrative workers at NHSG throughout Bands 1-4 was £39m in 2024/25.
KPMG recommends that NHS Grampian commissions “a overview of programs, processes and know-how within the center and again workplace to establish the place automation will be employed to scale back workers numbers”.
“A 30%-40% phased discount in back-office roles realised by investing in know-how, attrition and re-organising inner roles would save £11.7m-£15.6m.
“This can require some funding in know-how equivalent to Robotic Course of Automation and AI and will take roughly 12 to 36 months (or past relying on tempo and attrition charges) to grasp,” KPMG provides.
Scottish NHS Boards can not make workers redundant, so KPMG suggests pausing recruitment to those posts to assist the 30-40% discount over the subsequent 5 years.
“Using GenAI instruments throughout HR, finance and procurement can unencumber workers for extra value-add actions,” KPMG provides.
The overview estimates that if NHS Grampian adopted the total listing of financial savings proposals it may save a further £26.7m this yr, however these further financial savings will nonetheless fall in need of delivering monetary stability to the board within the short-term.
Neil Grey, well being secretary, mentioned that the federal government will make a further £5.9m accessible to NHS Grampian this yr to assist drive quick enhancements in A&E and unscheduled care efficiency.
“It’s important that NHS Grampian prioritises motion that improves capability, makes essentially the most affect and drives actual, sustainable change,” Grey mentioned.
Laura Skaife-Knight, chief government at NHS Grampian, who’s main the board’s financial savings and enchancment programme, mentioned: “All financial savings schemes will proceed to be rigorously thought-about to make sure affected person expertise, medical care and workers wellbeing is maintained or improved.
“We’re grateful to the Scottish authorities for the extra funding offered to NHS Grampian to additional enhance entry to our pressing and emergency providers and scale back ready instances for operations and appointments (deliberate care) for the populations we serve.”
In the meantime, in Might 2025, NHSE awarded a ‘tiger groups’ contract value £13.3m to KPMG to assist trusts unlikely to satisfy the March 2026 digital affected person document goal.
