NHS trusts face a “perilous” financial situation with analysis revealing today that services ran a deficit of £780 million last year.

The situation is forcing health leaders to make “increasingly difficult choices” that are impacting patients and could result in more job cuts, according to the King’s Fund.

Experts said that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s spring statement did not do enough to bring “financial pressures back into the balance” and warned that current spending does not match the government’s ambitions for the NHS.

The King’s Fund analysis found that NHS trusts ran a deficit of more than three-quarters of a billion pounds in 2024-25.

King’s Fund senior analyst Danielle Jefferies said: “At first glance, the NHS and Department of Health and Social Care budgets may appear manageable, but as soon as we look under the bonnet, it is clear many organisations within the health service still face a perilous situation.”

The charity also highlighted that NHS trusts have been in deficit for eight of the last 10 years, except during the pandemic when new funding was arranged.

Ms Jeffries said: “If the government is to tackle these issues over the long term, it is going to require them considering how to sustainably manage the increasing costs of delivering healthcare, so that NHS organisations can avoid financial deficits whilst still meeting the care needs of the population.”

Unison head of health Helga Pile said the findings “will be a serious concern for health workers and the patients they care for.”

“Many NHS trusts are trying to balance the books by cutting jobs or hiving off services to contractors,” she said.

“But such knee-jerk decisions often create bigger problems for the future.

“Shedding staff and offloading services rarely saves money in the long run, puts further strain on remaining workers, and could lead to worse outcomes for patients.”

She called for a better NHS funding settlement, alongside long-overdue investment in social care, so that “staff can do their jobs properly and patients can have confidence the care they rely on will be there when they need it.”

NHS England said the analysis “underscores the progress we continue to make with latest data demonstrating a balanced financial position, above-target improvement to NHS productivity and high levels of investment into modernising NHS facilities and technology.”