The trust adopted foundation status on 1 April

In October advisers were sent in to the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust because of a "significant gap" between the trust's forecast and results.

But Dr Reid told the Commons Health Committee there was no "imminent threat" to patient care.

However, he said he would be closely watching the situation at the trust.

I think both the department and the regulator are learning lessons from Bradford Richard Douglas, Department of Health

"Although we can never make a complete separation between these two things, the problem here is connected with financial management and not the provision of NHS services directly," said Dr Reid.

"That is still the position as I understand it and, therefore, there is no reason for me as Secretary of State to intervene.

"Obviously I will maintain a dialogue with the West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority and the regulator in relation to the provision of NHS services in Bradford and will monitor this situation closely," added Dr Reid.

Bradford was one of the first trusts to be given foundation status and Dr Reid denied its difficulties represented a failure of the system.

"Up until relatively recently large dollops of money have been handed out for large providers of services without a lot of transparency about what they are actually purchasing and what they are actually doing. All of that is changing," he said.

"This is relatively recent culture so it perhaps shouldn't surprise us that when a light has been shone - and has particularly been shone on those who want more freedoms than they previously had - that we should be picking up things like this that would have gone hidden for years in the past."

The Department of Health's director of Finance, Richard Douglas, said: "I think both the department and the regulator are learning lessons from Bradford."