COSTS at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust must be reduced to prevent patients and health service purchasers going elsewhere.

Trust finance director Paul Taylor told the Trust board that all the services it provided would have to be looked at to find ways of making crucial savings.

At Tuesday's board meeting, he said the trust, which expects to overspend by £7.5m this year, had also been hit by the withdrawal of Strategic Assistance Funding from the Government.

Mr Taylor said Worcestershire had been expecting to receive £2m of this funding next financial year.

The financial problems faced by the county's Primary Care Trusts, the main commissioners of services from the trust, made the situation even more difficult, he said.

The PCTs' offer of funding for next year is considerably less than the trust anticipated.

But Mr Taylor said it was better to address the financial issues and stop being a high cost trust than to ask for more money from the PCTs.

Position

"Over the next three years, we need to reduce costs," said Mr Taylor.

"Our position is difficult but not desperate.

"However, some of the difficulties aren't going to go away quickly. If we can't catch up, the PCTs will send patients elsewhere.

"Some patients from Evesham and Broadway are already being sent to Gloucestershire."

The trust aims to make savings of £9m next financial year, although details of where the savings will be made have not yet been disclosed.

"We need to show we are putting our house in order," said Mr Taylor. "The PCTs have no more cash to give."

He said the Trust was expensive for a number of reasons.

"Other people are offering services for less," he said. "We need to come up with good quality services - it's the only way patients will want to come to the trust."

A detailed financial savings plan is currently being drawn up. It will be discussed by the trust's finance committee on Friday, March 28.