BARNSLEY’S hospital and Primary Care Trust bosses are at loggerheads over a looming cash crisis which could see hospital services cut. A leaked letter sent from PCT’s chief executive Ailsa Claire to her opposite number Jan Sobieraj at the hospital on Wednesday reveals the growing tension between the two trusts. It follows Mr Sobieraj’s shock warning last week that the hospital could become an A&E service only because of a £5-14m shortfall in the budget.

He said the other options were to keep some of the services or retain them all and expand into community nursing – which this week hospital chairman Gordon Firth said was their preferred proposal.

But in the letter Ms Claire knocks that idea on the head and reveals the PCT has been bailing out the hospital financially for the past two years to the tune of £4.3m, allowing them to meet their national targets.

In it she states: “May I say how disappointed and concerned we are that such a significant issue about the trust was not discussed with us before these statements and documents were unilaterally released.

“Services currently provided in the community (by the PCT) are part of a nationally recognised good practice example of partnership working with the local authority and there are no plans to change these arrangements.”

Mr Firth told the Chronicle said he believed the additional money raised by taking on community care, which he estimated to be worth £80m, would enable the hospital to continue the services on site which run at a loss.

But Ms Claire in her letter states that she believes such a move would only have a marginal impact on the hospital’s financial situation.