A TROUBLED hospital trust has revealed it overspent by £1.3 million in just one month – and is set to be in deficit by up to £40 million at the end of the financial year.

David Meikle, interim director of finance at the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, told a board meeting that the situation is ‘volatile’ and that October had been a bad month financially.

‘The finances deteriorated quite badly in October and we are under real pressure. It is not realistic we will end the year where we had budgeted to be,’ he said.

The Trust – which runs the DGH at Eastbourne and the Conquest Hospital in Hastings – was placed in Special Measures just over two months after a damming report by the Care Quality Commission.

It is operating to a budget where the agreed overall overspend for the 12 months can be £35.2 million. However, after just seven months, that figure is already at £25.8 milion - £5 million over the target.

In October, it spent £5.6 million – which is £1.4 million over budget.

Mr Meikle said the high cost of agency staff was among the reasons.

He said it was difficult to forecast with any confidence given the volatility, but the Trust has requested extra cash from the Department of Health because it is unrealistic we will meet our budget.

The Trust has spent a staggering £13.5 million on agency staff in the first seven months of the financial year – compared to £5.7 million for the same period last year.

Alice Webster, director of nursing, said there was a real crisis recruiting nurses but said that 40 new staff has been recruited from the Philippines and the Trust is now focusing on Spain for further recruitment.

The Trust also revealed it missed its accident and emergency targets for November. It was expected to see 95 percent of patients within four hours but only managed to achieve 91.2 percent. Year to date the figure is 93 percent against the expected 95 percent.

Acting Chief Executive Richard Sunley said the Trust Improvement plan is ‘now the core of what we are doing’ and said it was a mammoth amount of work being undertaken.

The Trust currently has no chair of Chief Executive. An announcement on a new chair is expected next week.