Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust – which runs the new £256m Queen Alexandra superhospital – is placing strict controls on recruitment to save cash.

Staff could be asked to switch roles or work across different departments and some workers may not be replaced when they leave.

A special panel has been set up to assess every request for a new staff member.

And managers are reducing the number of people authorised to take on expensive agency staff – which have cost the trust more than £5m since April.

The trust has predicted a £9m deficit at the end of this financial year. But the real debt could be far higher if current levels of spending continue.

Managers are still £2.7m short of their £19.8m savings target for the year.

However they are confident no redundancies will have to be made.

Malcolm Dennett, interim director of finance, said: 'We are reducing who can authorise temporary staff.

'We are also setting up a recruitment panel that will investigate every new post that's recruited to.

'We will be looking very critically at every request for a new member of staff. In some areas we need to look at whether it is a role we should keep in existence.

'We need to save money and we can't take a lot of money out without reducing the workforce.

'We are conducting a controlled review of all posts before they are advertised.

'We have got to make sure we get back on to budget.'

Managers have reported a £3.4m overspend between April and July. However it is set to receive a £1.8m payout from local primary care trusts for work it has carried out which will offset some of the debt.

Mr Dennett added: 'We will get some more income, which will reduce the deficit, from primary care trusts for our overperformance.

'The reality is there is going to be less money around. Just thinking we can sit here and get paid by primary care trusts isn't reality.

'It's going to be tough. We will still reduce staff by not recruiting and moving staff around to different roles. Now we are in the new hospital instead of on three sites we need to look at whether we can cope with less staff.'


PRIVATE FINANCE DEAL

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust entered into a private finance deal with consortium The Hospital Company – consisting of contractors Carillion and the Royal Bank of Scotland – for the £256m rebuild of Queen Alexandra Hospital.

Building works started in January 2006 and the second phase was completed on June 15.

Now major services from the now defunct Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport, the Gosport War Memorial Hospital and St Mary's in Milton have all been centralised at the Cosham site.

It will take the health service 31-and-a-half years to repay the massive loan for the new hospital.

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