BORROWING at the NHS trust that runs Great Western Hospital could top £41m by the end of the year.

Finance chief Karen Johnson told the trust’s annual members’ meeting: “Money is very tight across the NHS. This is not just the Great Western.”

It is expected that, by the end of the financial year, Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will have borrowed £41.6m cash from the Department of Health to cover staff pay and supplier costs.

Mrs Johnson warned: “The more we borrow, the more interest they will charge on top of paying back the loan.”

She admitted it was “not a very positive outlook in terms of financial position”, but she stressed it was important to put GWH’s performance into context. The nearly 200 NHS trusts nationally were together already £26m in the red, she said.

“It’s not just the Great Western,” Mrs Johnson told trust members. “There are an awful lot of other trusts. It doesn’t mean it’s right. It doesn’t mean it’s not challenging, doesn’t mean we don’t have a duty to ensure our money is spent in the best possible way.”

In a candid presentation to members of the NHS trust, Mrs Johnson ran through the challenges of the past year.

High on the list was GWH’s aging equipment and limited £7.4m capital budget, from which new IT equipment as well as clinical kit must be funded: “It’s not enough. A lot of out kit is starting to reach the end of its useful life and in some cases it’s exceeded its life.” The hospital was looking at leasing options, where new equipment could be hired from specialist medical firms rather than bought new.

Mrs Johnson said the hospital was still paying tens of millions of pounds to its PFI provider, The Hospital Company, in an arrangement originally agreed when the new Swindon hospital was built in the early 2000s. The hospital paid out £12m in rental costs each year, as well as £11m every quarter in repayments and interest.

Nationally, the amount NHS trusts are paid for many different procedures was falling, placing further strain on the accounts.

Savings plans had sliced millions from budgets, but it was becoming harder to find where savings could be made, Mrs Johnson said.

However, trust members heard hospital accountants had managed to get the trust removed from special measures. NHS Improvement, the regulator, was now no longer demanding such regular financial reports from GWH.

And it was hoped the Department of Health would award the hospital a multi-million pound grant for improvements to the emergency wards, meaning it could better cope during periods of high demand.