SOUTHMEAD Hospital has reported a deficit of £51.6 million this year, almost double what it had originally planned for.

The hospital, which had planned for a £26 million deficit for the 2015/16 financial year, said that a number of unforeseen factors, which have been felt across the NHS over the 12 month period, have resulted in going heavily over budget.

A spokesman for the North Bristol Trust, who run the hospital, said: “We always identified we would be in a deficit position as we recovered costs associated with our hospital move and the loss of income as a result of service transfers across the Bristol health community.

“Like other trusts, North Bristol has experienced challenges in recruiting permanent staff resulting in an over reliance on agency and bank staff in order to maintain safe services for patients.

“In addition, issues around patient flow and timely discharge has meant that we have had to reschedule some operations and procedures which have impacted on our ability to meet national targets.

“This has meant we have undertaken less work than we planned and has had a direct result on the amount of income we have received.

He continued by saying: “As a trust we are determined to improve our position and have plans in place to do this but this may take us longer than we would like.”

The spokesman said that Government caps on agency providers were beginning to have a positive impact following the hospital’s “relentless focus” on recruiting more permanent staff.

He added by saying that the clinical staff were working hard to “identify inefficiencies” to increase productivity, while work was also being done to optimise theatres to ensure more operations can be done, and to identify ways patients can be discharged in a more-timely manner.

It was however pointed out that while productivity was being addressed, “continuing to provide great and safe care” for patients was still a main priority.