Under-pressure medical services in Colchester and Tendring will be hit by significant population growth in the next ten years, health bosses have warned.

Dr Shane Gordon, chief clinical officer of the North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, has warned the area is under “considerable financial and operational strain”.

An expected population growth of 10,000 in the next decade will provide further challenges for health providers, he warned.

Overspending on running costs and areas including prescribing in the financial year to date has drained the CCG’s reserves.

A total overspend of £5.69million has led to £3.94million being released from the group’s contingency fund, leaving only £135,000.

In a report to yesterday’s CCG board meeting, chief financial officer Kirsty Denwood highlighted ongoing risks about the Colchester Hospital University NHS Trust and the NHS’s quality improvement programme.

She said: “It is now clear the remaining funds will not be enough to fully mitigate this risk going into winter.

“The CCG faces many uncertainties and financial risks during 2014/15.”

The Government’s Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention initiative gives health bodies a money-saving target each year.

Due to the CCG’s difficulties in delivering a target of £18.5million savings this year – it predicts it will fall £8million short – its target is expected to increase to £20million for 2015/16.

Ms Denwood told yesterday’s meeting she would meet with CCG executives this week in a bid to find immediate savings.

She said: “There is potential for us not to meet our financial targets due to the QIPP challenge, which was unprecedented.

“I have appointments with all executive members who hold budgets and will be scrutinising spending and seeing if there are any further efficiencies for the current year.”

Dr Gordon emphasised the QIPP savings demanded of the group are equivalent to the area’s total spend on GP practices.

He said: “The scale of that is almost the total cost of primary care and general practice in the area over the next two years.

"That’s how big this is.”