PCT's cash crisis (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

PCT's cash crisis

Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust must cut services to save £14 million from its budget next year, according to health boss Trevor Jones.

The PCT received a subsidy of £14 million this year but next year it will have to manage without a subsidy and the £14 million loan will have to be paid back.

"The trust is in a very difficult financial situation and it will require hard action to ensure it operates within the resources it has," admitted Mr Jones, chief executive of Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority.

Mr Jones said he was unable to give a breakdown on why the PCT was spending more than others, but he said they were drawing up a financial plan to show where the savings could be made. The health authority expects to break even in March 2006.

Across the region, trusts have overspent by around £25 million about one per cent of the total budget which must be clawed back by the end of the financial year.

Part of the plan to make savings is a rethink of the PCT set-up 12 PCTs may be reduced to between three and seven.