A HEALTH trust is set to plunge £1.8million into the red because it had to raid reserve accounts in order to find £900,000 to fund a government-agreed staff pay award.

Overspending in Burnley Health Care Trust directorates stands at £921,800 but it is hoped some of that will be clawed back before the end of March.

The trust is set to fully fund the cost of winter pressures and has to pay for waiting list pressures taking the potential deficit to £1.8million.

At the board meeting of Burnley Health Care Trust, David Meakin, finance director, said: "We haven't got the same amount of revenue as last year and the reason the health authority can't help us out is the cost of the doctors' and nurses' pay award was £1.4million, and we received only £500,000 from Government.

"We had to find £900,000 and we had to go into reserves to find it so this year we have no reserves."

He said at the same time the trust has been treating more patients. There had been 2,000 more inpatients and day cases, 3,500 more outpatients and the trust was getting more and more referrals. Emergency admissions were also up by ten per cent.

Chief executive David Chew told the meeting: "We are embarking on a route to minimise the damage to the year end because that deficit will be the first charge on the next year's budget. We now have to start to build a recovery plan for the next three years.

"We have got some extra resources, but these are specific pots of money which we can only use for their specific purpose."

The board agreed to authorise the executive to take appropriate measures to control spending.

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