A further £3 million of cutbacks next year are expected to finally take Northwick Park Hospital out of the red.

The cuts are on top of £3 million savings this year and £6 million last year.

"We were in real trouble the year before last and this is the recovery plan we decided upon," said Ken Sutton, the hospital's new chief executive. "It is a slow process."

The plan has already seen more than 100 redundancies and Mr Sutton said he could not rule out more.

"I don't want to have any more redundancies, but you cannot say there will never be more," he said. "I want to try and think about other ways of saving money."

This includes trying to cut the times patients undergoing some types of treatment stay in hospital.

"Looking at some of the specialities, the lengths of stay are above the average. If we can cut these down we can free up resources and it will be good for the patient to be able to go home earlier," Mr Sutton said.

"This year we are trying to find the money we need through improved effectiveness."

Part of the problem is a delicate balancing act between ringfencing money to invest in the hospital for experiments which could save more money in the long term.

Mr Sutton admitted last year's savings, which he oversaw as finance director, were done "crudely" and said this time he wanted the cuts to be carefully thought out.

"This time the savings will be made by good management," he said.

John Hunter, chairman of Harrow Community Health Council, said he did not know enough about the plans to comment on them.

But at last week's meeting of the Northwick Park trust, the hospital's director of medicine, Prof Peter Richards, warned that staff could not take many more cuts.

He told the board: "Staff are working very long hours. It is unrealistic to expect them to work any harder."

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