A LEAKED report has revealed that Bolton's health service is underfunded by more than £14 million a year.

The report, prepared by the Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority, says hospital and other NHS services in the borough are struggling to cope with a budget of £280 million a year.

The budget is run by the Bolton Primary Care Trust and the report says it is underfunded by 5.12 per cent, amounting to £14.3 million. This is despite the trust receiving increases worth £45.1 million between 2003 and 2005.

This year's trust budget is to be shared between the Royal Bolton Hospital, community care, primary care including GPs' services and specialist care, and transporting patients to hospitals outside the Bolton area.

Trust chief executive Kevin Snee said: "If we had an injection of additional money, we'd work with our partners and stakeholders to plan how to spend it most effectively in line with our existing priorities.

"These priorities are investments in primary care and in alternatives to hospital-based care, care of people with long term conditions like diabetes, developing services for older people, and building a healthier Bolton through public health initiatives.

"This would be done jointly with key partner agencies especially social services, the hospital trust and the mental health trust." A spokesman for the Royal Bolton Hospital said: "We would welcome more funding but we are also working on improving systems and processes and looking at efficiencies."

Andy Morgan, chairman of Bolton Council's Health, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, said: "It's an absolute disgrace that Bolton's health service is so underfunded.

"All parties have been raising the issue of funding for health in Bolton for many years and it is about time something was done about it. Bolton has been the poor relation for too long."

The Royal Bolton Hospital, which receives £100 million a year from the primary care trust, looks likely to lose at least one of its two stars when the Government star ratings are announced in July because it fiddled waiting list figures for operations.