Maidstone Hospital

by Nick Lillitos

Four thousand NHS hospital staff have been asked if they want to apply for redundancy.

The Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW) is one of mid Kent’s largest employers, and serves 500,000 people, but now all staff have been invited to consider whether they want to leave with a severance package.

An emailed letter was sent to staff the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals giving them a deadline of Friday, October 5 to make their decision.

The jobs axe is being swung as the trust has identified it needs to save between £15-20million every year, for the next three years, as the government seeks to reduce the national deficit.

But it is also having to find £1.7million every month in repayments for the new hospital in Pembury, completed last year.

If the voluntary redundancy scheme does not produce the required savings managers have warned compulsory redundancies may have to follow.

Those who successfully apply to leave would no longer work for the trust after January 31. The staff savings would then show up on the accounts for this financial year, ending in March 2013, rather than hanging over to the following year.

The letter, sent by Paul Bentley, director of strategy and workforce, says job losses that would negatively impact on patient care will not be approved, but that all requests would get fair consideration.

But past decisions now appear at odds with a drive to save money.

Just recently the trust created more highly paid top jobs, doubling the amount of medical director posts from four to nine, which according to chief executive Glenn Douglas would “improve patients’ experiences.”

The KM exclusively revealed that an interim finance director, Colin Gentle was paid a staggering £1,050 a day for his work trying to balance the books.

Earlier this year MTW was named as one of seven trusts struggling to meet their PFI payments for new hospital buildings.

Over 30 years the initial £228million cost of the new Tunbridge Wells hospital will swell to a total repayment bill of £612million.

In a statement, the trust said: “Staff were asked to consider whether they wished to apply for voluntary severance. No offers of severance were, or have since been, made directly to any member of staff.

“The trust has asked all staff to consider their personal circumstances and if they wish to make an application, they have been asked to do so by October 5, after which all applications will considered.

“The letter sent states clearly that submitting an application does not mean that the requested voluntary severance will be agreed. Each application will be considered on its merits.

“The priority for the trust remains an absolute commitment to the quality of patient care, and given this, it is unlikely that applications from staff who directly care for patients will be accepted.”