NORTH Yorkshire is "on the brink of a health crisis" because of a lack of funding and spiralling demand for services, the chief executive of York Hospital has today warned.

Patrick Crowley, the head of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, told councillors and MPs his organisation has had to save £75 million in the space of three years and is likely to have to save another £30 million next year, claiming the health system is "in denial" about the scale of the problem.

Speaking at a meeting of City of York Council's health overview and scrutiny committee this morning, Mr Crowley said: "Care in the hospital environment is deteriorating at a rapid pace across the country.

"The system in North Yorkshire is on the brink of crisis. On a £400 million turnover, we have to save £30 million this year and it's not that we can cut services, it's that we have to provide everything we currently provide for £30 million less.

"I don't know where that ends if there is not some recognition of the system nationally. I personally believe the system is in denial about what is happening on the ground, and at a time when the quality of care has never been higher on the agenda, never has it been at greater risk."

Mr Crowley said North Yorkshire was gaining a reputation for "failure" in health circles because of the constant debt run up by its Primary Care Trust, before new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) came into force in April. The PCT ended with a debt of almost £12 million which will be passed onto the CCGs, making North Yorkshire the only area of the country where this will happen.

"Most people go into the health service with a real vocational spirit - they go in to provide healthcare," he said.

"The problem is today, but we have to look after services for tomorrow. I will go to my grave supporting people who want to get a fair deal for North Yorkshire, and if it takes a decade, so be it. But if we have not got adjustments to the current funding formula in a decade, we will be in an even worse position.

"The notion of legacy is as important as the notion of delivering health services today."

York MPs Hugh Bayley and Julian Sturdy, both of whom spoke at today's meeting, are to press for a House of Commons debate about health funding for North Yorkshire, saying the region was losing out because the funding formula does not take account of its diverse and ageing population.

In an open letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones, York's director of public health and wellbeing - writing on behalf of the health scrutiny committee - said there was a "particular and unique problem" over health funding for York residents, who come under the Vale of York CCG. He said it had the second lowest allocation of funding per person in the north of England.

He said the committee believed there had been "clear and repeated" assurances from the Government that no CCG would begin its life with a "historic debt", but the four CCGs in York and North Yorkshire were having to deal with the deficit amassed under the PCT. The committee has called for Mr Hunt to ask the Department for Health to "absorb and manage" the final PCT debt so it does not fall on the CCGs.