An MP has called for the Government to wipe clean a hospital trust's debt.

Lewes MP, Norman Baker, spoke after meeting with the chief executive and chairman of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The trust owes more than £21 million and has already announced it is cutting 325 jobs as part of a three-year project to save finances.

Mr Baker said: "In my view this is partly about money being siphoned away from the South-East to other parts of the country, partly about the pressures of an ageing population and partly about bad management in the past.

"Whatever the reasons, what matters now is to get the ship back on an even keel without damaging the service available to my constituents or those of other local MPs.

"Making savings required to break-even will be difficult but having explored options I feel sure there are savings that can limit the impact on front-line services."

The Liberal Democrat MP added: "Even though up to 325 jobs will still have to go I am assured this will be mainly via natural wastage rather than redundancies and the jobs in question will be predominantly managerial rather than front-line.

"If the trust was required to make up the deficit as well it would seriously affect the trust's services and the rest of the local health economy.

"I am calling on the Government to wipe off the £21.3m overspend in return for the introduction of measures to enable the trust's finances to break even.

"It does seem rather perverse to see our local NHS in such tight financial difficulties at a time when there has never been more public money being invested in the NHS. People are entitled to ask what has happened to it all."

The trust runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital, the Sussex Eye Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital and Hurstwood Park Neurosciences Centre in Haywards Heath.