THE FULL scale of the financial crisis facing health care across Southampton has been revealed to the city's politicians.

Mark Hackett, chief executive at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, was asked to address Southampton City Council's health scrutiny panel about the gaping £14m black hole in his organisation's budget last year - and what health chiefs intended to do about it.

At the meeting, the trust's finance director Ben Lloyd told members that this year they would have to implement a massive £17m savings programme to balance the books.

The organisation would also have to find an extra £6.5m, which it had failed to save in the last financial year (2004-2005)

He told members: "You can't make these kinds of savings through efficiency. We have been quite clear that the only way you can find savings is by having less facilities and less people.

"There is a risk that if we don't do it fast enough, we will still have financial problems, but if we do it too fast, we risk destabilising the system."

Outlining part of the trust's planned rescue package, clinical project director Rob Morris said that the organisation planned to implement a single surgical service taking in Southampton, Winchester, Lymington and Andover by 2006.

The service would create "centres of surgical excellence" at both Southampton and Winchester hospitals where consultants would specialise in different types of more complex surgery.

It would differ from the current arrangements where surgeons carry out different operations at the same hospital.

The changes are due to be implemented by summer 2006, following a planned public consultation.

But chairman of the health scrutiny panel, Councillor Peter Marsh Jenks, warned that patients currently having operations in Southampton could now face having their surgery done at Winchester if the plan went ahead.

He said: "There will be some understandable concerns from friends and relatives who want to visit. It is almost impossible to get funding if you are on a low income to help pay for a visit.

"Relatives from disadvantaged areas are not likely to be able to visit patients."

Mr Hackett told members: "We have to look at how we can create a service that is sustainable, of high quality and affordable. By bringing in these changes, we feel the service that the patients will have will be better than any they would have in the private sector."

But Cllr Marsh Jenks also warned that the trust's planned cutbacks in staff would affect the level of patient care.

He said: "You can't lose key jobs so you always look to administration and management. You lose the people you have to manage the spending and you are back where you started."

Last night's meeting comes after Mr Hackett fired off a letter to the head of the local health authority, warning that things looked like going from bad to worse for the trust's fianances.

In the letter, which was leaked to the Daily Echo, Mr Hackett spoke of the need for radical change and increased funding and warned that cuts to patient services could be needed.

Last week, the Daily Echo also revealed how up to 300 NHS jobs could be at risk and that NHS trusts, which run Hampshire's hospitals, doctor's surgeries and other vital medical services, were entering the new financial year more than £40m in debt.