Hundreds more hospital jobs will be shed in Sussex as a NHS Trust has announced it will cut up to 250 posts to try to save money.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Eastbourne District General Hospital and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards, says it expects the posts to go though natural staff movements and retirements.

It says it does not plan to make redundancies but they cannot be ruled out in the long term. Administration and non-clinical positions are expected to be lost.

Today's announcement brings the total number of job losses announced in hospitals in the county over the past two months to almost 1,000.

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare, which runs Crawley Hospital, is axing 400 posts while Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is shedding 325.

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust has recently called in a team of financial experts to help it get back on track.

St Richard's Hospital in Chichester is also drawing up savings plans.

East Sussex Hospitals employs about 5,100 people and managers hope to lose the posts by not filling already-vacant positions and natural wastage.

The trust, which has an annual budget of about £206 million, managed to break even last year but still owes £5 million.

It has tried to save money by cutting back on the use of agency staff and reducing the number of beds taken by treating more people as day patients but it is still spending more than it can afford.

Trust chief executive Kim Hodgson said: "We cannot ignore the difficult financial position across the NHS locally.

"However we recognise that this is difficult news for our staff, particularly when we have successfully managed our finances over the past year.

"We are concerned to minimise the effect on our committed, permanent staff who provide such an excellent service and we fully expect to make the savings without redundancies.

"We also recognise that the measures we plan to take will add to the pressures on us all but that is preferable to large-scale redundancies."

Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson said: "At a recent meeting, I expressed my fears about Eastbourne District General Hospital being the victim of death by a thousand cuts. I hope this announcement is not the start of that process."

Unison has warned industrial action cannot be ruled out.

A spokeswoman for the Union said the latest news was not a surprise and meetings would be arranged