HOSPITAL staff have been warned of potential job losses as the South Tees Hospitals Trust tries to save £91m within three years.

Employees who work for the trust - which runs the 1,000-bed James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, have been told they must reduce costs more quickly.

Since 2011 the trust has saved £66m - the equivalent of around four per cent of the trust’s annual budget of £550m - but staff are being told that they must speed up the rate of savings to catch up with other NHS organisations.

In the current financial year the trust is on course to save £21.9m but this has to rise to £40.1m next year and another £29m in 2016-17.

In a statement to staff, the trust chief executive, Professor Tricia Hart, said: “We do not underestimate just how difficult it will be to make these savings while at the same time protecting the quality and safety of services we provide.”

She said the reason why the trust is in a difficult financial position is because it has not made the four per cent annual recurring savings that every NHS organisation is required to achieve.

“In effect, we now have to move at a quicker pace and speed up the rate of savings we make just to catch up with other NHS organisations,” she added.

Prof Hart said the trust is already on track to deliver the £21m savings target this year thanks to staff “tightly managing budgets” and the support of consultants McKinsey, who have an office at James Cook Hospital.

She said renewed efforts would now be made to save money, reduce waste while improving services and systems to benefit patients and staff.

Prof Hart said some staff had already left the organisation under the voluntary resignation scheme but warned that further staff reductions “as we adopt new ways of working and delivering quality services” may be necessary.

The chief executive stressed that South Tees was not the only trust having to tackle a difficult financial position.

“Only last month Monitor reported that 80 per cent of acute foundation trusts were declaring a deficit. Unlike many of them we are ahead by having a deliverable plan to turn our position around,” she said.