HEALTH trusts in the region are expected to have £170m in unspent cash - as critics accuse hospitals of rationing care to make savings.

Every hospital and primary care trust in Greater Manchester is expecting to break even or have a surplus by the end of the financial year, according to Department of Health figures.

Pennine Acute Trust, which runs hospitals in Bury, Rochdale, Oldham and North Manchester, had a debt of £9m at the end of last year and will still owe £4m in April - which means a surplus of £5m this year.

Trafford Healthcare Trust started the year almost £6m in debt and is only predicting a surplus of £502,000, according the figures calculated at the end of June.

Doctors' leaders have criticised health chiefs for ordering `treatment rationing' while predicting millions of pounds in surplus cash.

Health bosses say any surplus cash will be reinvested.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, from the British Medical Association, said: "It's obviously better for the NHS to be in surplus than in deficit. However, you have to look at what trusts have done to get out of the red.

"At the end of last year we saw services to patients being cut, with operations delayed, outpatient clinics cancelled, and referral management schemes - which were really only thinly disguised forms of rationing.

"There are still hospitals that are threatening to lay off hundreds of staff to break even."

Pennine Trust bosses said it has saved £2.4m in the last three months by increasing the proportion of day surgery, selling off surplus land, including the former Westhulme headquarters, and axing beds which are under-used.

A NHS North West spokesman said: "The £170m represents a tiny fraction of the £10bn we spend each year on healthcare in the region, or a little over 1.5p in the pound.

"The surplus money isn't lost to the region. Every year we carry savings over that are earmarked for planned developments in the following year.

"The NHS in the north west is financially stable and we are in a much better position to fund those developments to support the trusts that are already implementing their financial recovery plans." Tweet