HEALTH bosses at Blackburn with Darwen Primary Care Trust have decided to hang on to a six-figure debt in a bid to highlight a problem faced by GPs across the country.

The £675,000 debt that the one-year-old Trust will carry into its second year has been put down entirely to local GPs prescribing drugs to their patients.

The Trust board agreed to leave the debt, rather than put off vital capital projects or to take a one-off loan which it would have to pay off next year, something they say they had been advised to do.

Meetings have been held across East Lancashire to try to tackle the problem, with the majority of health groups facing similar difficulties.

But the regional office said the debt was a very small proportion of the overall budget and was not considered serious.

A report to the board by the Trust director of finance, Paul Hinnigan, said: "At the half-year stage the majority of NHS organisations in East Lancashire were also forecasting year end deficits.

"Meetings have been held with the north west regional office and other NHS organisations in East Lancashire to review and attempt to resolve the year end financial position. The East Lancashire health economy is required to ensure that overall, a balanced position across all organisations is achieved by the year end."

The report also said that forecasts by the NHS Executive north west showed the year-end debt could be cut to £500,000.

The deficit is a blot on the copybook of the Trust, which was the first to be established in East Lancashire and has been forging ahead with health projects and promotion in the area.

Mr Hinnigan told the board meeting: "We have to meet the costs of prescribing.

"We are not unique in this and we have managed everything as well as I believe we should and could have."

Dr Alistair Murdoch, executive committee chairman, said: "It is to the board's credit that we have declared a deficit rather than clawing back money from somewhere else. We have to let GPs know that we are trying to do something about this, that we are going to create a stink until we get it sorted."

Chief executive Vivien Aspey, said: "We haven't faired too badly given the financial outlook. We are not clawing back into capital investments and that is quite a positive view."

A spokesman for the NHS Executive North West said: "The prescribing costs for the whole of the north west, including East Lancashire, are higher than we originally anticipated and budgeted for.

"But it is a very small percentage of the whole budget. In the scheme of things it is not large and all patients who need drugs will get them.

"One possible idea we have suggested in some areas is to postpone some capital projects, but none of them are large ones. "

Nigel Robinson, chief officer with Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Community Health Council, said: "We believe that the patient should have the drugs that they need. But the GPs are being penalised for prescribing appropriately for the local population."