A tight rein will have to be kept on hospital spending if it is to meet its targets by the end of the financial year.

Essex Rivers NHS Healthcare Trust, which provides hopsital services in Colchester, has overspent by £1.09 million this financial year.

Yesterday's board meeting heard there was a £257,000 overspend in December alone.

The Trust's director of finance Bill Shields said holidays and bank holidays in December put extra pressure in increased costs for hiring agency staff.

He said he was keeping an eye on the overspend in three departments: medicine and emergency, which spent an extra £755,100, pharmacy and pathology, which overspent by £536,400, and Optima, which includes operating theatres, non-emergency transport and outpatients departments, where the overspend was £249,200.

Drug costs have meant cancer, women's and child health departments have also overspent.

Some departments, including radiology, finance and surgery, underspent, which offset some of the higher costing areas.

Mr Shields said: "To ensure that we run a financial balance, it will not be possible for us to hit all our targets."

These could include the number of patients waiting between nine and 20 weeks for treatment.

The monthly report for December showed that 1,435 outpatients were waiting between 13 and 20 weeks for treatment nearly double the target for the month. This has to be reduced to 670 patients by the end of March.

But he added that he had some confidence that the nine key indicators would be met, meaning the Trust would retain its three-star Government rating.

Published Wednesday, February 5, 2003

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