Shropshire’s two biggest hospitals are overspending by £100,000 a month, with bosses being forced to take immediate action in a bid to prevent job losses, it was revealed today.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust faces a deficit of £1.2 million by the end of the financial year.

The trust runs both the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal in Telford. And the situation has become so serious that it could even threaten to derail its bid to become an NHS Foundation Trust.

Staff at the trust have been told about the dire financial situation and are now being urged to consider changing the way they work to help save cash.

News of the cash trouble comes after it was revealed yesterday that nurses and healthcare assistants are being asked to voluntarily cut short their daily shifts in a bid to make savings and stave off job cuts.

Adam Cairns, the chief executive of the trust, today said: “Overall this year we have a deficit of about £400,000.

“On average this is about £100,000 a month, hence the measures we are now putting in to place.

“We have had a difficult first quarter to the year, but we have made some improvements during the month of July.

“We have got to keep asking the question are we using our resources effectively and can we make improvements, and we will keep asking that question.

“If we try and dictate all of these changes from the top down we will get it wrong, which is why we are listening to staff and working with them to provide the highest quality of service using the resources available to us.”

The trust is under heavy Government pressure to make efficiency savings.

Nurses and healthcare assistants have been asked, on a voluntary basis, to shorten their daily shifts by half-an-hour and accumulating the hours to work an additional shift at a different time.

There will also be a continuation of a drive to reduce bank and agency costs.

Under foundation trust status the hospitals and their surrounding communities would be able to have more freedom from the Government and decide how their services should be delivered.

By Russell Roberts