THE much-troubled trust that runs mid and south Essex's three major hospitals, including Basildon, is already slipping well behind cash-saving targets.

And it is recruiting specialist help to assist its management team do its job.

Mid and South Essex NHS Trust, the financially-stretched trust that looks after Basildon, Broomfield and Southend hospitals, is reviewing where it could cut dozens of jobs after it was revealed its plans to cut costs are failing.

The trust was expected to overspend its budget by around £84 million this financial year, but predictions show it is likely to miss that target as it is already £8 million over its predicted deficit. Figure released up to the end of June, just three months into the financial year, show the deficit was £40.4m against a planned £32m. 

The job-cutting scheme is one of several measures planned to get back on track – with health union Unison claiming hospital bosses "want to let 150 staff go".

The trust says its deficit position is because some of the 'Improving Value' programmes it planned  are not being delivered yet, but are expected to later in the year.

It has also admitted that while spending on bank and agency staff fell between June and July, it is not falling quickly enough.

To address the deficit, the trust says it has been reducing patient length of stay, increasing its scrutiny of discretionary spending, transforming outpatient services, ensuring activity is recorded correctly and ensuring that staffing is managed effectively and reducing the need for bank and agency cover.

Critics of the hospital trust, which has performed poorly over many years and has been subject to a number of reviews after damning Care Quality Commission reviews across its services, say hospital bosses have been using "cloak and dagger" tactics and keeping staff "in the dark" over a "voluntary severance scheme".

The Save Southend NHS campaign group, for example, has slammed the "secrecy" of senior management.

In response the Trust has insisted the severance scheme is "purely voluntary" and will help it "redesign teams" and use "resources efficiently".

Speaking at a health scrutiny meeting Director Laura Harding said: "We have a big amount of money that we need to save. But at the end of June we were already off plan by £8m.

"Obviously the financial improvement plan is that sort of hockey stick thing where the full year effect won't be seen until the end of the year.

Although we have got a lot of schemes a lot of them are not going to be delivering at the beginning, they deliver more towards the end.

"The sort of predicted savings are still on track but we are slightly adrift.

"And obviously that has meant that we are getting some targeted support from NHS England as a trust which we will start to feel the effects of that over the coming months."

Ms Harding said the Trust was now bringing in 'targeted help' through finance and medical advisors so it can focus on making change. She added: "Taking money out safely in itself requires a bit of focused resource so having that brought in to help us do that will be useful.

"We are trying to do so many things. It's really helpful just to have people just focusing on that recovery."

"We have a big amount of money that we need to save. But at the end of June we were already off plan by £8m