DESPITE overspending around £11m in parts of its budget last year, NHS Swindon has said it came in £1m in the black.

The primary care trust said its acute overspend for 2009/10 had been caused by over-performance in elective care, which saw more patients elect to go to the BMI Ridgeway Hospital for non-emergency care.

They also said that they grossly under-used its independent sector treatment centre – a private-sector owned centre contracted within the National Health Service to treat patients.

A spokesman for NHS Swindon said: “The PCT has to make difficult financial decisions to ensure the limited resources available to it is spent on all the residents it serves.

“At the end of the 2009/10 financial year the PCTs overall budget showed a surplus of £1.096m, despite showing an overspend in our budget for acute contracts.

“Throughout the year we constantly monitor and forecast spend to allow us to make contingency plans resulting in under spends in other budget areas.”

NHS Swindon has a budget of about £300m, which covers services provided by hospitals, GPs and other clinical staff and providers.