Struggling health trust says it must reduce wages bill

ACTION BEING TAKEN AS IT FACES £40M DEFICIT

- By JOSHUA HARTLEY

ONE of Nottinghamshire’s largest employers has warned it must cut staff costs as a huge £40 million loss looms.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the county's mental health services, is expected to miss its break-even operating budget by tens of millions of pounds as its turnaround plan falters.

The trust, which has been under heavy scrutiny for its failure to treat paranoid schizophrenic knifeman Valdo Calocane before his 2023 killings, was £23 million in deficit by November.

The struggling NHS provider has adopted a recovery plan in a bid to fix its ailing finances, but newly-released board papers have admitted these measures have been slow and ineffective, with the deficit likely to reach £40 million by April.

In response, bosses are planning to reduce the cost of permanent staff by making “pay efficiencies” and tightly controlling vacancies.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare, which employs around 11,000 people, has also put some staff at risk of redundancy, but says job cuts will be targeted.