THE organisation running Worcestershire’s three major hospitals could end the current financial year £15 million in the red unless action is taken, a senior executive has warned.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital – has come under significant financial pressure in recent years and ended the 2013-14 financial year with a £14.2 million deficit.

The organisation has pledged to work its way back to a positive financial position over the next few years and in April predicted it would end the current fiscal year with a £9.8 million deficit.

But the trust’s financial report for August showed its deficit was already £1.1 million greater than it forecast it would be five months into the year.

In his monthly financial report deputy chief executive Chris Tidman said if the current trend continued the organisation could face being £15 million in the red by next April.

He said the position was due to the continued high amount of patients visiting the three hospitals and the need to deal with a significant backlog of elective operations, resulting in a requirement to hire temporary staff – who are generally much more expensive than personnel employed by the trust on a permanent basis.

But he said the trust's executive team was working on developing a series of measures to mitigate the problems and hoped it could achieve its forecast by the end of the fiscal year.

Worcestershire is not the only hospital trust in this position, with hospital trusts up and down the country also facing significant financial strains in the face of increased demand and government spending cuts.