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NHS trusts have actually been asked to make drastic cuts as the service deals with a forecasted shortage of almost ₤ 7 billion, health leaders alerted today.

In a study for NHS Providers, 47 per cent of trust leaders warned they are rolling back services to balance the books, while another 43 per cent are thinking about doing so.

Rehabilitation centres, talking therapies and services for young people are amongst services at risk.

Eighty-six per cent of respondents said their organisation is having to cut jobs in non-clinical groups, while 37 percent plan to cut scientific posts.

A variety of trusts are intending to cut 500 jobs or more, with one planning as many as 1,000.

NHS union Unison's head of health Helga Pile said: "Ministers shouldn't be insisting trusts stabilize their books while ignoring the damaging effects for patient care and a demoralised labor force.

"The NHS needs more staff - not fewer employees - if delays and awaits patients are to end."

It comes as NHS president Sir Jim Mackey informed a Medical Journalists Association occasion in London the service had actually "maxed out on what is cost effective."

He stated that the NHS was most likely to have a ₤ 6.6 bn deficit this year, despite a budget of around ₤ 200bn.

Though he has actually demanded unprecedented cost savings, he knocked the "normalisation" of bad care, saying that, ten years back, "we would have never ever accepted old women being on passages beside an [A&E] department for hours on end."

We Own It founder and director Cat Hobbs said: "Back in 2012, the NHS was rated as the best healthcare service in the world.

"That was before the legislation that deliberately opened up our entire NHS to profiteering.

"Sir Jim Mackey is dead-on to state that patients being treated in corridors and parking area is unacceptable. If he wishes to stop this scandal while conserving cash, he must end privatisation as quickly as possible.