Official auditors are still uncertain that the NHS trust which runs parts of Edgware Community Hospital has got a grip on its £5.6 million debt.

The Wellhouse Trust, which also runs Barnet General Hospital, is in financial hot water through a combination of inherited debt and poor accounting which meant it went unpaid for treating patients.

"I am shocked at this report," said Elizabeth Manero, chairman of Barnet Community Health Council.

"We are talking about £70 million of public money and every penny of that money is for patient care. We would expect not only a normal level of control but far more.

"The trouble with the health service is that decisions have been made on assertions, not facts. That has got to stop."

The trust has not been paid for £3.1million-worth of work it carried out without first getting the agreement of Barnet Health Authority or West Herts Health Authority.

Alan Sanders, a non-executive director of the trust, confirmed the auditors required further assurances that it was doing enough to remain financially viable, but said it would probably escape official censure.

"One point that the auditors made is that there was not actually enough financial staff to support the trust," he said. "There have been patients in wards but there were not enough bodies to see the work was done. It needs labour, it need people and it needs brainpower.

"If we were paid for all the work that we did, most of this problem would actually go away. We have already established that from a cost point of view, this trust is not better or worse than any other trust locally."

A Barnet Health Authority spokesman said that it would pay the trust what it actually costs to provide services in the future, but said funding levels for last year had been set.

Dean Curtis, the Trust's newly appointed director of finance, said the trust had reduced its NHS debtors by £3 million in the last month.

"With the benefit of hindsight we should have been doing that two to three years ago and we have not. But now we have got the plan to take it forward," he said.

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