THE two hospital trusts in the Bradford district overspent by a combined total of £7.5 million in the last financial year, it has been revealed as the NHS ended a record £2.45 billion in the red.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust posted a deficit of £6.5m on its £369m budget for 2015/ 16 which its financial chief blamed on uncontrollable demands.

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust overspent by almost £1m on its budget of £150m - which was slightly less than it had forecast.

Bradford Hospitals director of finance, Matthew Horner, said last night: “The position is due to a combination of factors including high levels of emergency demand sustained throughout the year, the high cost of drug and blood products and additional nursing costs for one-to-one patient care which, combined, have hindered our ability to deliver planned cost improvements.

“It is a disappointing position, but one that reflects the extremely challenging financial constraints currently facing the NHS today.”

A spokesman for Airedale Trust said: “As reflected across the NHS, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust is reporting a deficit. The reported position for 2015/16 is an operational deficit of £997,000 against a planned deficit of £1.2m.

“The planned deficit was to cover additional staffing across ward areas to maintain patient safety.”

Bradford District Care Trust successfully underspent on its budget of some £130 million in 2015/16 but its finance chief warned that the next 12 months will be much tougher with reduced spending across some key services.

Liz Romaniak, its director of finance, contracting and facilities, said: "Despite a challenging year in 2015/16 the Trust achieved our planned surplus of £1.3 million.

“This reflects the extraordinary hard work, commitment and innovation our staff deliver on the frontline and in support functions.

“The outlook for 2016/17 is much more challenging; we need to deliver £5.8 million cost improvements which represents an efficiency gain of around 4.4 per cent.

“The level of efficiency required reflects impacts for our services from reduced national Public Health Grant funding on our contracts for Health Visiting, School Nursing and Substance Misuse Services as well as local cost pressures as we invest in technology and innovation."

“Despite having a far reaching cost reduction programme our plans will deliver a £1.3 million surplus - this falls short of the target set for us by our regulator, NHS Improvement, by £0.5m.

“The key priority for the NHS currently is restoring financial balance to safeguard services.

“This need for stability meant the Board needed to be confident that we could achieve the plans and do so without compromising safety and quality.

“We have staff who are engaged, passionate and motivated and who will support us in delivering this new set of and challenging plan.”.

Bradford Council’s deputy leader, Councillor Val Slater, who now holds the portfolio for health and wellbeing, said she intended to meet the bosses of the three health trusts in coming weeks.

“One of my plans is to talk to key people at all the Trusts and the Clinical Commissioning Groups," she said.

“There’s a real need to look at integration in these challenging times. We need to do all we can with early prevention so that people don’t get driven into hospital services.”

The overall level of NHS debt prompted a warning that patient care will begin to suffer without rapid action to tackle health service finances.

The deficit is lower than the £2.8 billion which had been predicted, which Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS Improvement, said showed that "providers have made every effort to meet rising demand for services at a time when the sector is also being asked to be more efficient than ever".

But NHS Providers, which speaks for most trusts, said rapid action was needed or patient care would suffer.

And there were claims that the figure was only kept below the £2.8 billion prediction through financial "alchemy".

The Nuffield Trust said trusts have made "accountancy adjustments", including reclassifying capital budgets as revenue, claiming for five quarters (15 months) worth of VAT rebates and reviewing accounting policies.

But a Department of Health spokesman said: "We are committed to the NHS and are investing £10 billion in its own plan for the future, and it is vital that money is accounted for consistently.

"We recognise parts of the NHS are under pressure as demand rises due to our ageing population, but we are providing intensive support to improve performance, boost efficiency and reduce the use of expensive agency staff."