Health chiefs at Airedale Hospital are being urged to tighten their belts in a bid to save nearly £750,000.

Cash set aside to cope with inflation and contingency plans is to be frozen as bosses look at ways of saving money.

Airedale NHS Trust's finance director Janet Crouch said budget forecasts for the coming year showed the trust would be £746,000 in debt.

She warned trust board members that they couldn't approve a deficit budget and that money spent by the trust to cope with winter pressures, pay rises and new equipment for the radiology department would not be reimbursed, leaving it with a deficit.

She stated that freezing reserves and making savings in each department would be the only way forward.

She said: "The Government's view is that trust's are expected to be 3.5 per cent more efficient. I recommend freezing reserves for the interim period until it becomes clear the board can meet its targets."

Cash from the sale of the trust's redundant buildings would also be used to offset the loss. The sale of Scalebor Park Hospital, at Burley-in-Wharfedale, and part of the site at Castleberg Hospital, Giggleswick, continues to go ahead but will not be taken into account in this year's budget.

Government guidelines state that health trusts must break even over a three-year period. Mrs Crouch revealed that although Airedale made a loss last year and was left £86,000 in the red, it had money left from the previous two years, totalling £90,000, which would balance the books.

Director of planning and marketing Doug Farrow also outlined key projects for this financial year, with the £1,250,000 replacement of its ageing angiography equipment top of the list.

Mr Farrow said: "The angiography equipment has been failing since December, last year, and we haven't been able to use it for complex diagnostic work."

The hospital has already secured modernisation funding to replace the accident and emergency department's X-ray equipment and used capital contingency reserves to repair faltering radiography equipment.

He also highlighted the need to replace endoscopy equipment at a cost of £74,000, theatre equipment totalling £62,000 and £155,000 on replacing fire alarms, windows and external cladding on the mental health service buildings at Moor Lane.

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