A hospital trust is on course to make a £33m saving this year despite figures forecasting a multi-million pound deficit.

Figures published by the government today predict the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust, which runs the Radcliffe Infirmary, John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals, in Headington, and the Horton, in Banbury, is on track to end this year with a deficit of just over £9m. But the trust has welcomed the figures because it represents savings of £33m in the past year.

Spokeswoman Helen Peggs said the trust had cut its deficit by shedding the cost of agency nurses, speeding up the time a patient stays in wards, running more efficient operating theatres and cutting up to 600 positions with only 40 redundancies.

She warned: "We are not at the end of the year yet and have still got the busiest period of the year to come."

Elsewhere the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Trust is predicted to turn a surplus of about £230,000 into a deficit of nearly £1.2m.

Predictions have also been released based on the half yearly results of the five primary care trusts. In September they were all merged into one, the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, which inherits their finances. The South East Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust and Oxford City Primary Care Trust were on course to swap surpluses of £31,000 and £263,000 into deficits of £457,000 and £827,000 respectively. The figures proved better for Cherwell Vale PCT whose deficit has been predicted to fall from £3.3m last year to £1.5m by the end of March 2007 and South West Oxfordshire PCT due to fall from £2.8m to £1.2m.

North Oxfordshire PCT was on course to finish the year with debts of £427,000 - down from £579,000 last year.