BOLTON will receive a funding boost from the Government to help ease pressures on its health services over the next few months.

Health chiefs have revealed that Bolton NHS Foundation Trust is to get £1.5m of a £350m one-off emergency cash injection to help hospitals over winter.

The money is part of £2.8bn for the NHS announced in last month’s Chancellor’s budget.

It comes as Royal Bolton Hospital prepares for an increase in demand on its services over winter.

However, trust chairman David Wakefield told board members at their Friday meeting that the money offered by Chancellor Philip Hammond for up to 2020 fell short of what was needed.

He said: “Although some money has been allocated in the budget it is not nearly enough for this year or next.

“As a provider we are waiting to see what impact it has on us.

“There certainly seems to be a difference of opinion between the Secretary of State saying we are doing really well and the chief executive of NHS England saying actually we have got to make a choice now.

“We will have to make some choices on how targets are going to be met.”

Director of finance Annette Walker confirmed the funding would be made available over the winter period but did not know which areas of the hospital’s services it would go towards yet.

It was also reported that the trust has overspent by £1.2m so far this year – £1.6m more than it expected to by the end of October.

However members said they had the support of NHS Improvement and were still committed to delivering its target of a surplus plan of £10.1m by the end of the year.

Finance and investment committee Allan Duckworth added: “Significant improvement is required if we want to meet that target.

“It’s going to be tough.”

It was also reported that the trust was spending more than £2 million more than budgeted for on agency staffing – almost all of its allocated spending for the year.

Costs are currently at £5.9m against a year to date plan of £3.7m and full year plan of £6.2m.

In the report to board members the finance committee ‘stressed its heightened level of concern’ about the amount of agency spending.

Mr Wakefield added that while Bolton was struggling, it was was inline with trust performances across the country and was fairing better than some of the other trusts in Greater Manchester.

He added: “All of us are going to face a huge challenge in the next six months and you can see the start of things in Greater Manchester and it’s not very good.

“Christmas is a particularly difficult and it is coming off the back of a very difficult year.”