THE trust which runs Colchester’s hospitals will borrow up to £26million to be able to pay its staff this year.

Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust finished last year with a £22.3million deficit and bosses are already projecting a loss of up to £44million for this year.

Now it has emerged the trust’s 3,500 staff will have to rely on “distress” funding from the Department for Health to get their pay.

The trust has already been allocated two tranches of interim funding worth £14million from the pot. The rest of the money will be available to the trust as and when it needs it, as long as the applications are approved by regulator Monitor.

In documents due to go before trust governors on Thursday, it states the money is “needed to be borrowed to be able to pay staff”.

It adds: “Going forward, the trust needed to focus more on better ways of working, being more efficient and innovative.”

The main reason for the significant deficit is the amount of money being spent on agency staff, especially in nursing. In May, £448,000 was spent on paying for agency nurses, but it was the first time since 2013 the trust met its own prescribed staffing level plan.

About 400 agency staff were paid that month.

Colchester MP Will Quince said he has met with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to discuss the best way forward for the hospital.

He also revealed Mr Hunt is set to unveil an NHS England’s Essex-focused Success Regime, which will see a troubleshooter oversee the “entire Essex health economy”

before “diagnosing”

what can be improved.

He added: “The one thing we are not going to do is let hospitals fall over.

“It is not an option to let a hospital fail, there are no ifs and buts about it.

“I am confident the hospital is making improvements, but whether it is enough to get out of special measures in September, I don’t know.”

A trust spokesman said: “We have been saying for a long time we are going to have to borrowmoney this year.

“In the long-termwe plan to return to financial sustainability over the next five years.”