Health service staff are said to be “devastated” after learning of possible job cuts.

East Kent NHS Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust says it is making every effort to “avoid compulsory or voluntary redundancies,” but says it needs to address financial strains.

It has launched a 30-day consultation with admin staff and says there will be a reduction in some roles.

The trust looks after the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, the William Harvey in Ashford, the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Buckland Hospital in Dover, and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone.

Chief executive Tracey Fletcher said:” We have launched a 30-day staff consultation to standardise administrative functions across the Trust and support the work to improve the Trust’s financial position through challenging ourselves on how we make the best use of the resources we have available to us, including a reduction in administrative roles.

“Every effort will be made to avoid compulsory or voluntary redundancies as a result of these changes.

“We will work with affected staff as we have a number of alternative roles within the organisation that are currently unfilled.”

All NHS workers who may be affected by the cuts have been contacted.

Ms Fletcher added: “We understand that this is a difficult time for them and we are offering support to our staff.”

An anonymous source, who works for the trust, told KentOnline: “Affected staff are absolutely devastated.

“I fear that a lack of centralised mobilisation against this, such as strikes, legal challenges, etc, will just result in staff feeling even more helpless and without hope.

“This is currently in a consultation period, with staff being ‘guided’ through the process of either having to reapply for their job in competitive matching or being put into a redeployment pool so the trust can avoid having to pay redundancy packages.”

It comes as NHS chiefs compared trying to fix an ailing hospital trust’s finances as like “trying to boil an ocean”, earlier this month.

Top brass at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) say their ballooning costs are “unacceptable” and they need to meet further “ambitious” saving targets next year.

In December the trust was running at a deficit of almost £70m.