A JOBS freeze and cutback on expensive drugs could be ordered by hospital bosses to prevent Burnley Health Trust plummeting to £1.8 million overspending this year.

Tighter controls on employing locum doctors and agency nurses are also on the cards as health chiefs draw up a major recovery plan to pull back spending to within budget.

Directors have been told the emergency measures will place severe difficulties on the running of the trust, but there is no other way out of the crisis.

A report to tomorrow's meeting of the trust board shows the absence of extra money to help hospital managers deal with extra pressures during the winter months and to help meet waiting list targets will make an already dire position even worse.

Latest figures show hospital department budgets are already £922,000 overspent, but managers believe this can be pulled back to £745,000 by the March 31 year end. However, the report from finance director David Meakin reveals waiting list pressure costs will add another £600,000 with a further £500,000 needed to slash waiting lists to levels demanded by the Secretary of State.

Mr Meakin says with a worst case scenario of £1.8 million overspent, the trust must "seriously consider" whether it can meet the demands to balance the books and cut waiting times.

He says short term measures include non filling of all non clinical posts between now and March 31, even tighter controls on non clinical pay and new controls in the use of expensive drugs in mental health.

Mr Meakin warns: "The measures will undoubtedly place severe difficulties on the function of the organisation, but in the light of the current financial position, I do not believe we have any other alternative."

He says that while an extra £100,000 could become available to deal with some problems, there was a strong view that no additional cash would be available for millennium or winter pressures.

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