A troubled Kent hospital trust is showing signs of financial progress after overspending by £45 million last year.

East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust is working on reduce its hefty deficit, having been labelled one of the “most challenged” NHS bodies in the country.

Last year the organisation’s financial woes boiled over with new chief finance officer Tim Glenn parachuted in from Royal Papworth Hospital Trust in Cambridgeshire to aid the trust, which runs hospitals in Ashford, Canterbury, Dover, Folkestone and Margate.

However new documents demonstrate tentative progress in the first few months of this financial year. As of July, the trust was overperforming - running a deficit of £23.7m, when the plan was £23.9m by this point.

Papers for a board of governors meeting last week explain the trust has reduced its spending on agency staff in nursing and midwifery significantly.

A spokesman said “tight financial controls” are still in place at the hospitals.

They said: “Income from patient care is higher than planned so far this year and the trust’s temporary staffing costs are lower than planned, which has contributed to the improving financial position.

“However, the trust still faces a number of cost pressures and so tight financial controls remain in place while it works to fully eliminate its deficit.”

The spokesman explained East Kent Hospitals has been successful in recruiting staff on a permanent contract, which has reduced their reliance on agency staff.

As it stands, the trust has a planned end of year deficit of £88.5m, which they are on track to meet.

A spokesman added that “the trust is working to eliminate its deficit over the next three years.”

The development comes after repeated concerns were raised about the trust’s financial situation.

In a board of governors meeting last December, then-chairman Niall Dickson said the organisation was one of the “most challenged” NHS bodies in the country.

And Mr Glenn said in February that costs had “got to an unacceptable state” and that by December “we were losing about £10m per month.”

East Kent Hospitals ended the financial year in April with a deficit of about £117m, against an original planned deficit of £72m.

As such, the Trust was told by NHS England that it needed to find £49m of savings in the 2024-25 financial year.

Ken Rogers, chairman of Concern for Healthcare in East Kent (CHEK) and former governor at East Kent Hospitals for nine years, welcomed the news, but raised concerns about patient care deteriorating.

Mr Rogers said: “If you can actually stabilise and save the money through efficiency that’s brilliant.

“I don’t think that they could be in a position to say they're giving excellent patient care because what they’re doing is trying to save money.

“I think that where patients now are suffering is the lack of appointments, GPs and waiting times.

“The way to get out of debt is improving services for patients and then they won't keep coming back over and over again because they can't get a result or can't get the test they want to have.”

“I’ve seen it all, I’ve been at the board meetings, so nobody can tell me that suddenly they’re going to break even without saying that something along the line has suffered.”

The veteran health campaigner went on: “I don’t see how they are ever going to get out of financial problems and maintain patient care. The problem has been that the investment hasn’t been in East Kent.”

However, responding, a spokesman said the trust is improving the quality of care for patients.

They said: “The programme designed to improve our performance in 2024/25 demonstrates that it is possible to deliver better quality, safer care, whilst also being financially sustainable.

“We are delivering more clinical procedures than last year, reducing the number of longest waiting patients and improving the quality of care we’re providing, at the same time as reducing our monthly deficit.”

If NHS trusts face very severe financial problems and are at risk of falling apart, they can be broken up and reorganised.

In 2012 the South London NHS Healthcare Trust, which ran hospitals in Woolwich, Bexley and Bromley, was dissolved in the face of severe financial woes.

It was placed in administration after accumulating debts of almost £150 million, and its functions were reallocated between other NHS bodies and private companies.