Performance concerns at one of the largest hospital trusts in Kent has led NHS bosses to list it as one of the country's most in need of help to improve.

Bosses at Medway NHS Foundation Trust have been told by leaders at NHS England that additional support will be drafted in as part of a new recovery support programme.

The new framework put in place by the national health board's improvement team replaces an old system which would have seen Medway put in special measures.

Changes to the system mean this is no longer the case but leadership at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham will now be working alongside NHS England improvement experts.

Financial management and care quality performance issues have been highlighted by NHS England which means it has been placed into segment four – the lowest group of trusts and health bodies.

This means it has been included in the new Recovery Support Programme as part of the new single improvement framework introduced for the whole of England at the start of July.

It replaces the separate quality and finance special measures programmes which have been in place since 2013. Medway was not in either of these before joining the new support scheme.

But KentOnline understands trust bosses are confident of being moved out of the programme within months.

The rating from NHS England comes after inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) last month noted improvements are taking place at Medway but said there remained "a lot of work to do".

NHS England will now be expecting to see continued and consistent improvement in multiple areas across the trust.

This includes better performance in the emergency department and elective surgery with a focus on recovering the backlog caused by the pandemic – all of which the trust says it has taken steps to address.

Cancer treatment has also been indicated as an area which demands better levels of performance while failings in infection control measures, which were also previously highlighted by the CQC, is being prioritised.

Reacting to the NHS England rating, Medway NHS Trust chief executive Dr George Findlay said: “We know that we have challenges in some areas and this was identified in our recent CQC report.

"Although improvements have been recognised, more are needed to ensure our patients receive better quality care, so we welcome the support that we can access through this programme following conversations with NHS England and NHS Improvement.

"Colleagues in the regional and national teams will work with us to provide extra capacity or expertise where we identify that additional support will help us work on our challenges and achieve improvements.

"Our leadership team is, of course, committed to supporting all of our staff to improve the experience of our patients, including recovering from the additional pressures resulting from COVID-19.

"This is an opportunity for us all to work together to build better and more sustainable services for our community with specialised support during this period."

KentOnline understands additional funding is not automatically allocated to the trust to improve services but it will be given greater support with health leaders working together with trust executives to bring in ideas which have driven improvements elsewhere.

The recovery programme aims to "provide a collaborative, system-focused approach for supporting those providers and systems with the toughest challenges," an NHS England spokesman said.

The spokesman added: "The NHS regionally and nationally will work with the Trust and local partners across Kent and Medway to better understand the root causes of the challenges they face and then agree, and deliver a package of intensive support, and set and monitor progress against an improvement plan."

The recovery plan will see "intensive support" provided to Medway led by an experienced improvement director.

It will focus on "underlying drivers of problems" to be addressed with a "clear exit criteria" and to ensure it has "sustainable capability within the system" after leaving NHS England's support network.

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Read more: All the latest news from Medway