It was feared today that a £5 million deficit facing a hospitals trust could lead to cuts in patient services.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust has clawed back some cash by cutting costs on drug prescriptions and agency staff but the £5 million shortfall still looming for next year poses the question of where the money is to come from.

The trust, in its first year of existence, set a target of saving four per cent of the budget to enable it to balance the books by the end of the financial year in April 2003.

Today it admitted it is not on target.

Eastbourne District General Hospital and Conquest Hospital in St Leonards are both run by the trust.

Tory MP Nigel Waterson raised the issue in the Commons, demanding to know from Health Minister John Hutton where the £5 million will come from.

He said: "Will it come from the primary care trust, central government or from cuts in services at my local hospital?"

Mr Hutton said the NHS in East Sussex received an additional £60 million this year, an increase of more than 10 per cent.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust's total income this year is £178 million, an 8.5 per cent increase.

And he added: "It is incumbent on me to point out that the honourable gentleman voted against the NHS receiving those additional resources.

"However, I know he rightly takes an interest in the NHS in his constituency, so I am sure he will know the trust board met last Wednesday to discuss how to resolve the matters to which he has referred.

"The board has developed an action plan to deal with precisely the point that the honourable gentleman has raised."