THE health trusts serving the Ryedale area received mixed messages this week.

While the York and North Yorkshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) said it was on track to bring overspending under control after cutting expenditure by more than £20 million in the past year, a patients' watchdog slammed the Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust.

Janet Soo-Chung, chief executive of the PCT, said it was in line to repay deficits from the last financial year. As part of the PCT's service modernisation and financial recovery plan, more care had been delivered closer to where patients live.

This, said Ms Soo-Chung, had involved providing increased nursing support for patients in their own homes, including the deployment of new fast response teams and closer working with family doctors.

"We are still working had to identify how we can make further improvements to the way we work, but we now have a solid financial base from which to work in the future. It's been a difficult time for staff and our partners and I'd like to thank all of them for their support."

Meanwhile the Scarborough Patient Forum, which this week was wound up to be replaced by a new network called LINks to measure the performance of the health service, has criticised the NHS Trust for keeping it in the dark and "hiring too many directors and financial bureaucrats".

Chairman Leo McGrory said the last two years had been dominated by the trust's debt of £30 million. While previously the forum had "meaningful" communications with the trust officers, they had reached an unacceptable level in recent months and the forum was excluded from the trust's committees.

Mr McGrory said eight new directors had joined the trust board in the past year which the forum believed was "excessive".

Iain McInnes, the chief executive of the trust, which is based at Scarborough General Hospital, said it had been through "a very challenging period" both financially and in delivering services, but it was looking forward to a secure future.

He added that the trust still hoped to secure Foundation Status from the Government which would give it greater autonomy.