SAVINGS of £7million must be found at Poole Hospital in the coming year, the trust’s chief executive has revealed.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Echo, Debbie Fleming, who took the hospital’s top job in April, disclosed she has been tasked with finding the deep savings just one year after the Competition Commission blocked a proposed merger with Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

In the 1990s, following a county-wide acute services review, Poole was assigned to take the lead on trauma, and has subsequently gone on to have the sixth highest proportion of emergency work, in relation to planned work, in the country.

“Within Poole we do all the stuff that tends not to generate a surplus,” said Ms Fleming.

“Over time that has meant it being very hard to cover the costs of all the services.”

Ms Fleming pointed to the proposed merger, which would have brought the two hospitals finances together.

“It would have balanced out this imbalance between planned and emergency work,” she added.

“It would have allowed the sharing of staff and services.”

The hospitals will not be allowed to apply to merge again for another 10 years, under Competition Commission rules – and Ms Fleming said the focus now needs to be on the future.

She added: “We have agreed [with regulator Monitor] that this year we know we will have a deficit position at the end of March – that deficit has got to be £3.8million – that is what we are working on. The following year it [the deficit] will be £9.3million.

“We have to do our part to deliver the savings that are expected of us this year and next – we have got roughly a £7million saving program this year.

“We have got to deliver all of that and meanwhile we have the Dorset Clinical Services Review going on led by the CCG [clinical commissioning group].

“What we expect is over the next year we will get clarity about how services will be configured in Dorset for the future.

“We are expecting there to be a lot of change and we are very clear going into that review what Poole has got to offer and what Poole is good at.

“We expect the hospital to change in the future to better meet the needs of the public, but also to have a sustainable financial position.”

THE NHS requires above-inflation increases in funding to remain stable, Ms Fleming has claimed.

She said: “We know the government committed to maintaining the current level of expenditure – and they have done that.

“The truth is in the NHS, with the cost pressures, just to stay still we need to have about five or six per cent growth to address those cost pressures.

“I think people have done really well with the savings they have achieved but most of the time those savings have been short-term and actually longer term you can’t go on like that.

“I think we all recognise the health service needs more investment, but also recognise it needs change.”