A SHORTFALL of £23 million will have to be plugged by North Yorkshire health bosses in what is described as “serious deterioration” in their finances.

Adrian Snarr, director of finance at NHS North Yorkshire and York, revealed the crisis to board members yesterday at a public meeting in York.

Three areas have been identified as targets for cash savings, including secondary care, prescriptions from GPs and money spent on private health services outside the NHS.

Secondary-care services include those provided in a hospital, ranging from maternity wards to coronary care.

While the exact nature of the savings has yet to be revealed, a report into the trust’s finances made recommendations including “robust action to reduce prescription activity by GPs”.

Mr Snarr told board members that despite earlier financial forecasts predicting the trust would break even at the end of this year, pressures on the service meant it now had to take “immediate corrective action” to cut expenditure. He said: “Our year end forecast is break-even.

However, there has been a serious deterioration in our financial position and we are drawing up a range of measures to reduce expenditure, in addition to the savings that need to be achieved through our Quality and Productivity programme.

The measures we are considering will ensure we can sustain good quality and safe NHS services for our population during the forthcoming year.”

The trust has a statutory obligation to break even at the end of the financial year and Mr Snarr admitted the organisation was not within budget.