HOSPITAL finances at Dorset County Hospital are in better shape than expected – despite increased demand for services.

Governors heard at their meeting on Monday that the hospital was £400,000 better off than the planned position – although £233,000 of that was due to a Government award which arrived too late to be included in last year’s financial returns.

Other improvements were due to being paid for work by the Clinical Commissioning Group earlier than expected.

But finance director Paul Goddard said that there was concern about an ongoing overspend on agency staff, currently costing £500,000 a month’ although he said that on the plus side the agency staff were helping the hospital hit government targets which, in turn, led to additional payments for the Dorchester hospital.

Mr Goddard said that the hospital remained short, by about £2million, on the £7million in ‘efficiencies’ it was required to find by next April, and with winter on the way pressure on the budget was likely to increase: “But we are keeping our heads above water, while others are sinking,” he said.

Hospital trusts chief executive Patricia Miller said that the hospital had recruited betwen 15 and 20 non-EU staff during the financial year, meeting the initial cost of their accommodations and arranging visas and transport. She said that even when all the additional costs were added they were still cheaper than employing agency staff to keep the hospital running.

She said the hospital had been forced to look abroad because, as a nation, the UK had, over the last ten years, failed to properly plan so that it had enough medical staff to meet demand. A decision to cut bursaries for training had led to a 25 per cent drop in new nurse recruits, she said.

She was also critical of media coverage of the NHS which she said was ‘not helpful’ believing it deterred people from joining the service. She said that the negative image, of an under-funded service, under pressure, had contributed to 400,000 national NHS vacancies.