Chief Executive Chrisha Alagaratnam, said: “We have made incredible strides in improving patient care while closing our financial gap, and are currently forecasting to breakeven at the end of this financial year.
“We have been entirely transparent and open about our challenging financial position and recognise that the Audit Commission have a statutory responsibility to formally notify the Secretary of State regarding NHS trusts who have posted an aggregate deficit in the last three years.
“It is important to note that in referring this matter to the Secretary of State, the Audit Commission recognised that our Trust has reported a significantly improved financial position for 2013-14 in our draft accounts and have submitted a breakeven plan for the current year. In addition, our breakeven plan has been accepted by the NHS Trust Development Authority (the organisation that oversees all non-Foundation trusts).
“I would like to assure all of our patients, visitors and staff that we do have a robust plan in place to balance the books at the end of the year. I am proud of just how far our organisation has come in the past three years, thanks to the hard work and determination of all our staff and volunteers.
“For example, we perform very strongly in A&E, our results in the highly regarded Dr Foster Hospital guide have shown that we’re a very safe organisation (with consistently lower death rates than expected), and our maternity units have grown in popularity and size over the past three years. Put simply, we are bucking the trend in that our clinical quality continues to improve, as does our financial outlook.”