Seven trusts and two primary care trusts finished 2010-11 in deficit, DH says

These included East Sussex Hospitals Trust and Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust who were not predicting a deficit in December but had one by the end of quarter four.

East Sussex ended the year with a £5m deficit, Manchester Mental Health with £1m.

Overall the deficit position for trusts widened by £9m in the last quarter of 2010-11.

Surrey and Cumbria PCTs were left with deficits of £12m and £6m respectively, down from the joint £28m they were predicting at Q3.

Both acute and primary care trust positions mask significant bailouts of trusts across different regions.

The DH also picked out several trusts for poor performance in its quarterly report, covering the end of 2010-11.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust missed five out of five indicators on 18-week referral to treatment time, the only trust in the country to do so.

Stockport Foundation Trust saw 68.4 per cent of patients within the 18 week target.

The report also listed organisatons with the highest number of diagnostic waits of over six weeks in March.

It found East Sussex Hospitals Trust top with 1,490 of its 5,325-strong waiting list waiting more than six weeks.

The report, the final issue of David Flory’s The Quarter of 2010-11, showed the SHA and PCT sector holding a year-end surplus of £1.375bn while trusts, not including foundation trusts, had a year-end operating surplus of £121m - less than the quarter-billion trusts owe the DH in loans.

The end of the last financial year saw wide disparity across the regions on the total final accounts for acute trusts.

West Midlands and South West SHAs saw operating surpluses of £30m and £28m respectively, while the East Midlands was left with a surplus of £2m and London a deficit of £20m.