A HOSPITAL boss has ruled out job cuts this financial year even though Worcestershire NHS faces grave financial problems.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has saved just £200,000 – £2.3 million shy of the target set by health chiefs.

The trust, which manages Worcestershire Royal Hospital, was supposed to save £200,000 by this stage of the financial year, leaving it £2.3 million short of its £2.5 million target.

Mike Stevens, director of finance and business development at the trust, said: “If this position were to continue at this rate the trust would miss its year- end financial target by a substantial margin.

“The figures for September show a significant deterioration in the trust’s performance.”

The trust is supposed to save £5 million this financial year to meet a target set by the Strategic Health Authority, which oversees the performance of trusts in the West Midlands.

Mr Stevens has even revised his forecast and says the trust may only be able to deliver a £4 million surplus at the end of 2009/10, although the trust has a statutory duty to save £5 million.

The amount spent on work to cut waiting lists had been identified as an area to be managed over the coming months, including spending to ensure at least 98 per cent of A&E patients are seen, treated or discharged within four hours of admission.

Chief executive John Rostill said savings could not be made by “tweaking around the edges” but that he wanted to avoid job cuts to any of the trust’s 4,600 staff employed across Worcestershire’s three acute hospitals.

He also said he wanted to cut the use of agency staff which he called “a drain on NHS resources” and streamline ward work so nurses can spend more time caring for patients.

He said: “We may reduce the number of people we employ – that’s not the same as making people redundant. I see no advantage in making huge payments to make people redundant. Slash and burn is not the way to deal with this. The Government has promised there will be a small increase in money next year as there has been in the last few years – it is the years after that we’re looking to plan for.”

Mr Rostill also said the overspend represented a small part of the trust’s £160 million budget.

Howard Eeles, a Wyre Forest District councillor, said: “How on earth are they going to regroup the additional savings without some very creative accounting, I don’t know.”

Paul Bates, chief executive of NHS Worcestershire, which holds the county purse strings, said “hundreds of jobs”could go in Worcestershire in September but did not say where cuts would be made.