A free bus service for hospital workers has been axed to save £40,000 a year. The link between Worthing Hospital and Southlands Hospital in Shoreham will stop at the end of August, after eight years.

Angry staff contacted The Argus after receiving a memo from human resources director Steve Richards earlier this week. Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust is struggling to make savings of about £8 million this year and £10 million in future years to get out of debt.

It ended the last financial year £10.6 million over budget and brought in a team of financial experts to help it cut costs. An investigation is being carried out by the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority into why the trust originally reported a deficit of £6 million but later revealed it was £4.6 million higher.

The bus service was introduced in 1997 to help staff who had to move from Southlands when services were transferred to Worthing. The trust was required by law to provide a subsidised link for five years.

In the memo, Mr Richards said an audit over 12 days to the end of May, showed that staff used the bus 2,110 times but only 147 journeys were directly work-related. The vast majority of journeys were staff getting to work and back from home.

Mr Richards said: "In our current financial situation, it is just not possible for the trust to subsidise a service like this.

"I appreciate that this will affect staff who use the bus to travel to and from work but we need to look carefully at all possible ways to save money and avoid cuts to services and posts.

"As part of the process we are looking at new ways to help people travel between the hospitals as part of their job."

A trust spokeswoman said staff who were required to travel between the hospitals during their working day would continue to be able to claim mileage payment when using their own cars.

One worker, who did not want to be named, said: "People are really angry about this. This has been a vital link for many of us and now they are going to have to start paying or use their own cars instead. I thought the aim was to keep vehicles off the road and cut down on the need for parking spaces but this is not sending that message out."