Wards and staff cut at bankrupt hospital

Hospital wards are to close and hundreds of staff will be laid off at a health trust facing debts of £99million.

Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust is effectively bankrupt and surviving on handouts from the Department of Health.

It is implementing cuts in an attempt to save £23 million in a year. Drug orders will be slashed, operating theatre teams merged and car parking costs will rise. Staff have been issued with a demand to cut costs wherever possible and official documents say the situation is desperate.

"The 'do nothing' option is not realistic,"-papers say. "Individual staff should question decisions and actions that may disadvantage the Trust's financial situation and actively find ways in which they can support the Trust's objectives.

"The Trust is insolvent and is only surviving with cash support from the Government."

Bromley Hospitals is paying off one of the biggest private finance deals in the country - the £155million Princess Royal University Hospital which opened four years ago.

The trust has overall debts of £87million this year, rising to £99 million next year. At the same time it is facing an in-year deficit of £23million.

A spokeswoman claimed it will be in balance by the end of the year if the plans are put into action. She said staff cuts would first be among agency workers. "We are trying to protect clinical services by making cuts in administration and bureaucracy," she said.

Overall the NHS in south-east London is in debt to the tune of £64million.

Geoff Martin, of London Health Emergency, said private finance commitments were to blame. He said: "The fear over PFI was always that you would end up paying loans before anything else and that is what is happening.

"This is a big chunk of money to cut out of the service and you can't do it without cutting beds and services."

Bromley hospital was one of 21 in London named last month by the Audit Commission as "failing to provide value for money".

Its financial management was rated "inadequate" along with other hospitals which had also racked up large debts. Bromley also faces being downgraded to focus on planned surgery.

Under recommendations currently being considered by NHS staff, two out of University Hospital Lewisham, Bromley Hospitals, Queen Elizabeth Woolwich and Queen Mary's Sidcup would lose their trauma and maternity units. A group of senior doctors, nurses and midwives were asked for their views as part of an NHS shake-up.