THE organisation running Worcestershire Royal Hospital has continued to fall further behind its financial plans.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust ended the 2012-13 financial year with a £14.2 million deficit and forecast it would end this year £9.8 million in the red.

But the trust was forced to revise its plans to a £15 million deficit following an unusually high level of demand on hospital services throughout the summer across the county and in its financial report for October the organisation reported it was already £11.4 million in the red just six months into the year.

In its revised forecast the trust, which also runs Kidderminster Hospital and the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, predicted it would be £8.5 million in deficit by October, but the increased demand means it is £2.9 million behind target, with the majority of the additional costs going on expensive temporary staff.

Speaking at a meeting of the organisation’s board on Wednesday, November 26, the trust’s deputy chief executive Chris Tidman said a large amount of acute trusts across the country were finding themselves in a similar position.

“While I do accept some of this will take time it is clear also we have to get a lot smarter,” he said.

“If everything goes to plan and all of it falls in our favour I do still believe we can achieve £15 million.

“But if it doesn’t this could get worse.”

He said the situation could be exacerbated if the county’s Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) – which is required by NHS rules to end the financial year with at least a one per cent surplus – decided to impose fines on the trust for failing to meet targets such as the amount of cancer patients treated within 62 days.

“Along with receiving some of the lowest funding in the country they are now under serious pressure,” he said.

“We are putting a very strong case forward that where funds are penalised they should be reinvested back into the trust.”

Chairman Harry Turner said he hoped the CCGs would be sympathetic towards the trust’s need to be able to treat patients effectively.

“We do hope locally some common sense can be applied,” he said.

Although the trust was given a £2.6 million windfall as part of a series of government handouts intended to help hospitals cope with pressures over the winter earlier this month, its financial outlook is still bleak.

Earlier this year the organisation was amoung 19 hospital trusts which were reported to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for failing to end the 2012-13 financial year with a balanced budget.