HAMPSHIRE is facing a health service meltdown.

The Daily Echo can today reveal that the trusts which run the county's hospitals, doctors' surgeries and dental practices are to go into the new financial year facing a £40m black hole in their budgets.

The grim reality has been graphically laid bare in a leaked letter to one of the area's top health bosses from Mark Hackett, pictured left, the man who runs Southampton's three hospitals.

It warns that cuts will have to be made to services and major reforms imposed unless more money is made available.

For more on this story see tonight's Daily Echo