Airedale Hospital trust wants to temporarily close a surgical ward and all outside day hospitals to reverse a mounting cash crisis.

The news came at this week's trust board meeting when Janet Crouch,(pictured) director of finance, revealed the hospital's financial situation.

The income and expenditure report recommended a number of cost saving measures

Mrs Crouch said: "Without implementing measures to reduce expenditure, the hospital is looking at an overspend of £3m by the end of the tax year. We are going to have to manage as best we can."

The closure of Ward 22 is part of a wider plan to "manage down" elective activity at the hospital until March next year. In effect, this means that those waiting for surgery and other medical treatment will have to wait longer.

But Mrs Crouch insisted that the hospital would still hit the national waiting time targets of nine months, or 17 weeks, according to treatment required. She said they would also honour any treatment dates already arranged with patients.

According to the report, the areas of overspend include £416,000 on drugs, £873,000 on locum and agency staff and £300,000 on prosthetics.

And while Bradford PCT owes money in excess of £1m to the Airedale trust for the commissioning of services, the finances are still at an unhealthy level.

Doug Farrow, director of planning and performance, said the cuts could not come at a worse time.

According to the performance monitoring report, October saw a significant rise in activity at the hospital, mostly a result of increasing emergency admissions.

He said: "I'm now nervous of winter. October was a busy time and it's very possible it's a reflection of what we can expect this winter."

Susan Franks, director of nursing and planning, said she was worried about staffing levels.

She said: "The very high rates of sickness of staff at the hospital this year has been a major problem.

"We have exhausted the nurse bank and really are struggling.

"This summer has been a busy and difficult one. Staff usually have a bit of respite time in the summer months, but this year they feel as if they are going into winter tired."

Peter Putwain, former chairman of the abolished Airedale Community Health Council, said: "This really does call into question the viability of Airedale trust. What they are doing is hitting patients instead of looking at their management structure.

"As Mr Farrow said, winter pressures are already on them. They need to be more honest with themselves and their patients.

"They need to have more joint workings with Bradford's hospital trusts to overcome some of their problems and at the end of the day that is what's going to happen."

He added: "Taking into account the closure of the physical rehabilitation unit in Skipton and the more recent threat of cuts to maternity and child care, it's about time people started looking at the wider picture -- vital services are being lost."

Further saving measures to be considered by the trust include:

$ A vacancy freeze -- all staff vacancies will be reviewed by executive directors prior to advertising

$ A review of agency costs -- all posts currently filled by locums and agency staff will be reviewed by the director of finance and divisional managers

$ Maintenance work stopped --There will be no maintenance or refurbishment work done, unless there are sound Health and Safety reasons for it

$ Non-pay expenditure freeze -- spending money on non-essential stock will be stopped.