A HEALTH trust has announced it needs to make savings of £15m.

Tameside and Glossop Primary Care Trust has come up with a number of cost-cutting measures to make the savings.

These include working with GPs to reduce referrals into hospital, when there are alternatives available, and reducing the number of prescriptions that GPs give out.

Staff were given the news in a special meeting last week. Health bosses are maintaining that there are currently no plans for redundancies.

The trust has given itself until October to get its finances in order and has launched an initiative called Project Turnaround to help it save cash.

A briefing letter handed to staff at the meeting warned: "The situation is serious – we need to spend £15m less than last year but we know we can achieve this by working together. Other PCTs have managed to turn around bigger sums than this.

"If we don’t make the sometimes difficult decisions and choices around managing our own finances, then the situation will be taken out of our hands and a third party will come and do it for– or rather ‘to’ us. At that stage we will have lost control and let our public down as we will be unlikely to be able to deliver on our health priority areas."

Staff have come up with a number of ideas to save cash. These include not having lunches provided during meetings and cutting down on office equipment like printers.

Local MPs have voiced concern at the news.

Ashton MP David Heyes said: "I will be seeking to speak to the chief executive about this to see what action will be taken to resolve this problem."

MP Andrew Gwynne, who represents Denton and Reddish, said: "Clearly Tameside has always had the reputation of having strong financial management. There may be a reason its balance has fallen into the red. I would be disappointed if this was the start of a long-term trend that results in poorer health care for the people of Tameside and Glossop. I can only hope this is a one off."