Up to 700 jobs may be cut over the next three years at the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, it emerged today.

Hospital bosses blamed changes across the NHS nationally - including the use of the private sector to carry out NHS work and how hospitals are paid for operations.

They said the job losses were not about saving money.

Only last night the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, announced it was to shed 480 posts under plans to save 25 million in the next year.

More than 2,000 job cuts have been announced at hospitals across the UK in the past week.

The Conservatives accused the Government of abandoning the NHS, saying Chancellor Gordon Brown had ignored it in yesterdays Budget.

The County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said it will break even this financial year.

Significant changes across the NHS mean that we may need to remove as many as 300 posts from our workforce of 6,000 in the next 12 months, and up to 400 over the following two years, a trust spokesman said.

This should be possible through natural turnover of staff during that period, and patient care will not be affected.

County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust runs three main sites - the University Hospital of North Durham, Darlington Memorial Hospital and Bishop Auckland General Hospital.

It was announced on Tuesday that 300 jobs were to be cut at New Cross Hospital, in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.

The hospital has been spiralling into debt for several years and the move is part of an attempt to claw back debt that is set to top 38 million.

Last week hospital bosses in Staffordshire revealed that up to 1,000 staff could be made redundant in Stoke-on-Trent to reduce a 15 million debt.

On Monday, Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust announced it was cutting about 200 jobs to help save 22 million.