Conservative Party leader David Cameron has said he has no "magic wand" to cure Oxfordshire's NHS cash crisis.

A week before senior management is due to decide whether job cuts are necessary to ease a deficit of £35m at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, the Witney MP said he would be "silly and ridiculous" to promise he could save jobs or wipe the slate clean.

The only remedy, he said, was to strip out the bureaucracy, reducing the number of primary care trusts and strategic health authorities a move which has already been ordered by the Government and is due to happen in July.

Speaking exclusively to the Oxford Mail in Manchester, where the Tories are holding their spring conference, he said: "The real problem is that while the Government has put extra money into the health service, they haven't fundamentally reformed the structures, so the system isn't working properly and it's particularly bad in Oxfordshire.

"I can't promise a magic wand and say I'm going to solve all these problems, but we can have a system that works properly where we strip out some of this bureaucracy, where we have too many primary care trusts, too many strategic health authorities and start having real independence for hospitals and allowing GPs to be much more in the driving seat in commissioning care on behalf of their patients."

Concern is growing at how many jobs are on the line as the ORH trust responsible for Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Radcliffe Infirmary, and The Horton, in Banbury battles to balance its books.

Last week, chief executive Trevor Campbell-Davis said managers would be "looking at the workforce" as a way of lowering costs.

Mr Cameron said: "You can never make promises that jobs will be saved.

"That's the sort of promise politicians make and nobody believes it's ridiculous.

"The promise I will make is that we will match money into the health service with proper reform. And, as an Oxfordshire MP, I'm keen to get a fairer deal for the county, because I think the fact we seem to get a smaller share than other parts of the country is unfair.

"But I can't make magic wand promises we have to be responsible in Oxfordshire and not make wipe-the-slate-clean promises I can't do that."

He said he did not back Oxford City Council's bid to become a unitary authority, despite saying yesterday that the Tories would set "British cities free".

The Town Hall wants to run services provided by the county council, like schools and transport, and will seek Government consent later this year.

Mr Cameron said: "I'm in favour of delivering real change change in our schools, police and the environment but that doesn't mean you have to go through another expensive reorganisation."