HEALTH chiefs at Basingstoke hospital have said that services won't suffer despite having to save £7.2million this year.

Hospital bosses say they are confident the cash can be found from a series of belt-tightening measures and new funding schemes.

Martyn Dell, the hospital's director of planning, said that the cash-saving plan should be seen as "work in progress".

He said: "It is a tough challenge, but the board's track record has been great and we have had success in achieving our objectives. If we don't take action, we would have an income of £100million, but be spending £107million."

Mr Bell revealed that one way in which the hospital will seek to raise income is to attract people through the new NHS-wide Patient Choice scheme, which means that anyone who has been waiting six months or longer for a procedure must be offered treatment elsewhere.

Bosses believe that as Basingstoke has relatively short waiting times in many fields, they can build on this success.

Mr Dell said the opening of the new £8million diagnosis and treatment centre in December would also enable the hospital to pull in patients.

Mr Dell said: "We are well placed to take advantage of this. We have the capacity to treat people from other areas."

He added: "We are also looking at things like using our purchasing muscle more effectively and we will continue with the successful initiative to improve recruitment of staff - employing our own staff at NHS rates rather than agency rates."