Healthcare in Surrey is to be slashed by £50m with another £20m in cuts to come.

NHS Surrey intends to cut its costs by keeping more people out of hospital and doing more minor surgery in out-of-hospital settings.

Unless it can make the cuts it will end up £70.8m in the red.

It aims to slice its budget by keeping as many people out of hospital as it can by treating them at home or in other settings other than acute hospitals. It will also work to reduce the £8m wasted each year on medicines which are not needed.

The savings plan for the year 2010/11 was approved by the Board of NHS Surrey – formerly known as Surrey Primary Care Trust which claims that it can cut costs and improve patient services by working more efficiently.

Paul Bennett, deputy chief executive at NHS Surrey, said: "Our annual operating plan is about delivering the care that meets the health needs of people and patients while making the savings that Surrey needs.

"Many things have to change, but one thing that won’t is our focus on patients.

"We’ll be spending almost £1.7bn on healthcare for the people of Surrey in 2010/11. But we anticipate increasing demands on services could continue to outstrip our resources.

"If we simply carried on doing what we’re doing in the same way, in the same places, growth in demand would leave us £70.8 million short for the year.

"Decisions about using our resources wisely must be based on health needs and our plan makes it clear that clinicians will be even better placed to take these decisions based on what’s best for their patients.

"The biggest area of growth in spending has been on caring for patients in hospital.

"In future there will be greater emphasis on caring for patients before they need to be admitted to hospital and clinicians are the right people to make this happen."