Massive cuts may have to be made in Oxfordshire's health services to avoid £50m debts.

Health managers have warned that the situation will worsen unless hospitals restrict the amount of patients they treat.

The North Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust Partnership (NOPP) has a £6.3m deficit, caused by the amount of work it has commissioned from hospitals.

Although the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust has managed to clear debts of £41m, it is now planning to make savings of £11.7m to break even by next March.

Oxfordshire Mental Healthcare Trust has drawn up proposals for £6.3m cuts in the next three years.

South West Oxfordshire PCT had a £5.5m deficit at the end of March, and needs to save £20.59m to break even by March 2006.

Although South East Oxfordshire PCT had a £40,000 surplus in March, it too needs to make £4m cutbacks to stay out of the red this financial year, while Oxford City PCT is pledging to make £3m cuts.

The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre ended the last financial year with an £82,000 surplus, but is planning a £2.5m savings programme for 2005-6.

Dr Evan Harris, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, and a former junior doctor, said: "The financial crisis goes from bad to worse.

"The fear is that it means cutbacks and a clinical crisis, because the Government insists on targets, but provides neither the resources or the freedom to do it."

In previous years, PCTs paid for patient treatment through block contracts -- one-off payments which allowed GPs to refer as many patients to hospital as they wanted without incurring extra cost.

This year, a new scheme called payment by results means hospitals can bill PCTs for the exact number of patients they see.

The NOPP is predicting debts of £10.3m by 2006.

The county's NHS services are overseen by Thames Valley Health Authority. A spokesman said it was too early to estimate the final deficit, but said it was a statutory duty of all NHS trusts to break even at the end of every financial year.