HOSPITAL bosses have warned they may have to make cutbacks after attempts to solve bed shortages resulted in a £2million black hole in their accounts.

Finance director Stephen Brookfield said “extreme measures” will have to be taken to pay the bills for Burnley’s new £1 million temporary theatre, and for overspends in October of another £1million.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Burnley General Hospital and Royal Blackburn Hospital, spent the cash coping with huge increases in patient numbers.

Attendances at A and E are up 14 per cent, resulting in clogged wards throughout the hospitals.

More staff have had to work overtime, and opening emergency beds and threatres has helped ease the beds crisis, but left the bank balance under massive strain.

Measures under consideration include slashing training opportunities for staff, as well as cutting funding for offices and services outside the Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals.

Even without the £2 million to claw back, the trust was already facing a deficit of £1.56 million - £300,000 more than had been expected under its original plan.

Throughout October, spending on agency staff has increased by 20 per cent to just over £1 million, and expenditure on temporary staff now stands at more than six times its budget.

Monthly spending on theatre supplies has gone from £770,000 to £970,000 between September and October, and the trust is now set to struggle to meet its statutory duty to ensure it breaks even by the end of March.

Mr Brookfield said at a trust board meeting yesterday: “We have no secure cover for the £1 million cost to open the temporary theatre and move planned gynaecology surgery to Burnley.

“If we cannot deal with this and the overspends throughout the hospitals, we have a serious problem. We have already taken some steps to mitigate this, but the surge of activity in the beginning of November means the latest accounts will not show much improvement.

“Action plans agreed by the divisions have not been delivered, and extreme measures are now required.”

Non-executive director Martin Hill said he was “very uncomfortable” about the finances.

He said: “Effectively what Mr Brookfield is saying is that we have got a black hole of £2 million and we are not sure whether we have a workable plan to recover it.”