STAFF at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust will find themselves drying their hands on a new type of disposable towel, in a bid to cut running costs of the organisation.

The trust, which is having to tighten its belt urgently because of a predicted end-of-year deficit of £20m, is putting in place various money-saving schemes to try to cut down that figure.

We reported in the Daily Echo last month how the trust was facing manpower cutbacks, a slashed equipment budget and the possibility of staff not being paid in the new year if the financial situation did not improve.

The whole of Hampshire's health service is currently facing a cash crisis with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Health Authority looking at a predicted £37m deficit for the end of the financial year.

A number of schemes are in place at various organisations across the county in a bid to cut costs.

As reported by the Daily Echo last week, around 300 housekeeping staff at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester have been told to pay for their own pink and blue uniforms because of cutbacks.

And the latest initiative to be introduced in Southampton is a new type of disposable towel.

It is the second bizarre scheme to be introduced by the trust after it turned off the escalators at its Royal South Hants Hospital in the city, also in a bid to save money.

Trust spokeswoman Marilyn Kay said: "As the new white towels are larger, fluffier and more absorbent than the old green paper variety, managers are hoping people will be able to make do with just the one to dry their hands, rather than need a couple.

"Every little helps, and as the new, improved towels cost the same as the paper jobs, and we were using some 36,000 a day at a cost of £2,000 a week, cutting consumption would help towards achieving our financial targets.

"And as an added bonus, there would be fewer to throw away, which might mean we wouldn't need so many of the 1,500 refuse sacks either."

Mike Stone, chief executive of the Patients' Association, said he welcomed the idea, but said encouraging people to actually wash their hands was far more important than cutting costs.

He said: "The whole issue of hand-washing in hospitals is so very important. We need to get cleaner hospitals. Whether this will help, I don't know.

"We don't just want to see cost-cutting at the expense of cleanliness. If these are more absorbent towels then perhaps people won't need to use them so much, but it's encouraging people to wash their hands in the first place that's important."

A Friends of the Earth spokeswoman said the idea was a good one in principle, but added that it would not be environmentally friendly if the new towels were not biodegradable.

She said: "If they were using something that's made of a non-biodegradable substance, then it would be harder to dispose of, regardless of how many they used.

"If they are cutting resource use, that sounds a good thing, but it does depend on what's in it."