NHS trust 'on track' to make £50m of savings

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust was told it needed to make almost £50m worth of savings to help balance its books

Hospital bosses in charge of one of the country's most struggling trusts say they are "on track" to deliver massive savings after a huge overspend.

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) was told it needed to make almost £50m worth of savings to help balance its books.

But despite meeting its targets to date, the trust is still expecting a deficit of £88.5m – an amount it had planned for at the start of the financial year.

In December 2023, the then-chairman of the trust's board of directors described the body as being among the "most challenged organisations" in the country, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Since 2021, the trust has been in level 4 of the NHS's performance monitoring framework – the highest banding – which is applied to those "with the toughest challenges" and provides "intensive support" from the national organisation on finance and services.

The trust is one of the biggest in England and runs The William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Buckland Hospital in Dover, the Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone and QEQM in Margate.

At the start of the 2024/25 financial year in April, NHS England told EKHUFT it had to save £49m over the following 12 months.

In August, the trust reported it had gone £45m over its originally planned deficit of £72m in 2023/24 bringing the total overspend in the year to £117m.

Since then it has been establishing ways, such as its cost-saving measures, to bring that down.

The latest papers show EKHUFT's budget for 2024/25 still expects to meet its planned £88.5m loss this year.