Stafford Hospital has been ordered to find deeper cuts to try to plug a huge £80million financial black hole – despite the hospital already planning to scrap hundreds of jobs and axe 40 per cent of its beds.

The NHS is refusing to bail out the trust, which is facing a major financial crisis, and officials from the Department of Health and West Midlands health authority are believed to have told the hospital it must come up with even more radical cuts.

Behind the scenes officials are frantic to solve the dispute with the trust today telling the Express & Star it did not think it could plug the gap while at the same time maintain the quality of care for patients.

The situation is a body-blow to the hospital which is desperately trying to shore up its finances while keeping up care standards at the same time.

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