REDDITCH'S Alexandra Hospital faces another tough year as NHS bosses battle to plug a multi-million black hole in the balance book.

The bleak state of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust's finances was laid bare at their annual general meeting at the Charles Hastings Education Centre in Worcester last week.

However, NHS bosses said there was hope for the future despite a challenging year for the trust which manages the Alex as well as the Worcestershire Royal and Kidderminster hospitals.

The organisation failed to meet its statutory duty to break even in 2014/15 as a deficit continues to grow.

At month five the trust is already £23.8 million overspent. If no action is taken, the projected year end deficit for 2015/16 would be £58 million.

But the trust has a savings plan in place which aims to bring the deficit down to £48 million by the year end.

Hospital bosses are working with commissioners (those who hold the purse strings) to look at financial support to get the deficit down to no greater than £31.3 million by the year end.

The trust spent £3.7 million which was not agreed with the commissioners and incurred £4.6 million of fines which interim director of finance Colin Gentile said was ‘not right’ because the trust had been delivering safe care.

He added: “Although the numbers are bad at the moment there is hope.”

The trust, which has an annual turnover of £370 million a year and assets worth £204 million, faces a rising demand for its services.

In total there were 520,000 outpatient attendances at Worcestershire hospitals in 2014/15 which represents nearly the entire population of the county (570,000 people), evidence of the pressure the trust is under.

Interim chief executive Chris Tidman also stressed there were similar pressures facing all hospital trusts across the country but said the ongoing uncertainty at the trust was compounding problems as staff were not sure what the future held.

He said: “The year 2014/15 was probably the toughest year I have ever seen in my career in the NHS. At the moment it certainly feels no different. It’s pretty turbulent, pretty tough. I’m talking particularly about staff and the pressures they face.

“There is a huge challenge that faces us. We’re facing that challenge by being open with our staff. We have started what we call the big conversation with our staff.”

Peter Pinfield, chairman of Healthwatch Worcestershire, said: “It has been one of the toughest, most challenging years we have seen. The wheels nearly did come off the wagon.”

NHS bosses stressed there had been £18.2 million of capital investment in the trust in 2014/15, including £6.7 million invested in radiotherapy and £3 million in property improvements and £7.3 million spent on IT.

They have also delivered £14.3 million of savings.