THE Royal Bolton Hospital will end the financial year in the black, without help from outside bodies, for the first time in half a decade.

Bosses have made millions of pounds worth of savings and settled an £8.5 million historic debt.

But hundreds of jobs - many of them nursing staff - have also been lost over the past two years.

Last year the hospital had to borrow £3.7m the region's Strategic Health Authority, now called NHS North West, in order to balance the books.

In the next financial year, a further £3.75 million must be saved in order for improvements to be carried out at the hospital, and another 95 jobs will be lost, although bosses insist there will be no compulsory redundancies.

David Fillingham, chief executive of the Royal Bolton Hospital, said: "We've had a few tough years to get to this position, but now we're going to be able to forge ahead with a number of developments.

"Like all trusts, we still need to make efficiency savings, but we're on a much sounder basis now."

Chiefs at the hospital now plan to make a host of improvements including:

  • extra high-dependency and intensive care beds.
  • the opening of a new children's accident and emergency unit later this year.
  • a bowel cancer screening programme for the most at risk groups.
  • becoming one of the only hospitals in Greater Manchester to carry out complex heart operations.
  • improved antenatal screening.
  • investment in new computer equipment.
  • a new hospital-based clinical assessment and treatment service for ophthalmology.

Cllr Cliff Morris, chairman of the hospital's trust board, said: "It's exciting to look at the developments because there is a long list of improvements that we are making."