NHS Trust set to axe jobs in a bid to make £49m savings

AN NHS trust is poised to make mass redundancies as it tries to make £49 million in savings with £36.5 million of that being on pay.

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This will involving axing both permanent and temporary staff at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.

The trust operates Tunbridge Wells Hospital and Maidstone Hospital, and also Fordcombe Hospital near Tunbridge Wells. As was reported last month, the trust opened its 145-bed student accommodation and teaching campus at Tunbridge Wells Hospital.

As we also reported, the trust bought the former Spire Healthcare hospital in Fordcombe, which is four miles from Tunbridge Wells, in April last year. The 170 staff who worked for Spire were transferred to the trust.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust staff have been grappling with the devastating news about job losses, with one saying “it’s absolutely awful - it’s having a really negative impact on staff”.

They had been told at the end of May, in a communication from chief executive Miles Scott, about key projects being devised by bosses “to work smarter, not just harder”.

The Chronicle has been told by a trust source that during a recent online teams meeting, staff were told by Mr Scott up to 35 per cent of staff could be made redundant, starting with “low banding staff”.