David Ruffley MP has today expressed his concern that Suffolk's financially troubled PCTs and NHS Hospital Trusts may be facing fines for failing to balance their books by March 31 2006.

In Suffolk our region's health trusts are heading for being £45 million in the red and could face a fine of up to £4.5 million as a result.

The cause of these fines is an agreement made in January 2005 in which Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire SHA deferred half the debt owed by PCTs until March 2006 providing the books balanced by then.

To establish the precise situation locally David has written to Mike Stonard, Chief Executive of Suffolk West PCT, and Chris Bown, Chief Executive of West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust, asking to know:

• The current projected deficit for 2005/06.

• The financial penalty that will be incurred as a result of this deficit.

In addition David has tabled a series of House of Commons Parliamentary Questions to the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt.

David said:

'The only people that will suffer through these penalties are the patients themselves. It seems frankly ludicrous that the people of Suffolk, who already face cutbacks to health services across the region, could be punished further because of the financial mismanagement within our health trusts.

'To establish exactly what the situation is for my constituents I have today written to both Suffolk West PCT and West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust asking what financial penalty they will face for failing to balance their books by March 31.

'This is money that would otherwise be spent on patient care and it seems counterproductive, to say the least, to fine health trusts who are already struggling to meet the needs of their patients.

'I will be taking this matter up with the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, and will continue to fight for a better deal for Suffolk health care.'