Trust resignations need to 'weed out deadwood'

Kent's largest hospital trust must "weed out its deadwood" after bosses confirmed it was inviting staff to resign, health campaigners have said.

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKH) is offering employees one-off payments to leave their jobs as part of a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme.

Chiefs said they needed to make "difficult decisions to significantly reduce costs", but stressed that roles which "contribute to delivery of services" would not be removed.

However, campaigners said they believed a more comprehensive reorganisation was still required.

Former trust board of governors' vice-chairman David Shortt is the founder of campaign group Concern for Health in East Kent.

He said: "There always seemed to be a battalion of people in the trust who didn't really seem to have proper jobs. They are the ones the trust wants to get rid of, not clinical staff.

"If the trust wants drastic cost cuts, it's got to weed out the deadwood."

It comes as both Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and Medway NHS Foundation Trust are also running their own resignation schemes, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

In a statement, a spokesperson for EKH – which runs Ashford's William Harvey, Margate's QEQM and the Kent and Canterbury Hospital – stressed there was no target number of jobs to remove or savings to make.

"Like all NHS trusts, we need to significantly reduce our costs," the spokesperson said.

"This requires difficult decisions, including the reducing of staffing levels which currently account for £750m a year, or 65% of our annual spend.

"It's a voluntary scheme and we will not approve applications where roles are essential to safe staffing or critical service delivery."

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