The savings, which equate to 5% of the board's annual operating budget, are, however, below the required £22m ‘brokerage cap' to qualify for Scottish Government lending.

Describing that situation as 'unprecedented', chief executive Julie White, said: "It's really important to highlight to board members the enormity of this challenge."

The current plan also falls £5m short of the £18.3m savings targeted by the board, which includes 80 identified savings in the areas of:

• service optimisation (or productivity efficiency) – £1m
• workforce optimisation – £2m
• medicines optimisation – £4m
• financial control and flexibility – £4.3m
• service redesign (or cash release efficiency) – £7m.

Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'We are providing over £14.2bn for NHS boards in 2024-25 to support services, a real-terms increase of almost 3%. This comes against the backdrop of the UK Government's Autumn Statement which set out a real-terms cut for NHS England for 2024-25, with only £10.8m of additional consequentials derived from health spending – equivalent to 0.06% of Scotland's health budget. The Budget takes Dumfries and Galloway's overall funding for 2024-25 to £364.7m.

'Despite our significant investment, NHS boards, like other public services, are under unprecedented pressure as a result of inflation, Brexit and Covid and we are continuing to work with each of them to recover and reform services and address the financial challenge this year and beyond.'