An alarming survey reveals more than half of staff at a Kent NHS trust would not be happy for a loved one to be treated there.

In what bosses concede is a “shocking indictment” of the organisation, just 45% of workers at East Kent Hospitals are content with the “standard of care” - close to the lowest rate in England.

Even fewer, at 44%, would recommend it as a place to work - the worst of 122 acute trusts in the country.

With hospitals spread across Ashford, Dover, Canterbury, Margate and Folkestone, East Kent Hospitals is one of England’s largest trusts.

The results of the NHS staff survey were discussed at a board of directors meeting on Thursday.

“We acknowledge they are shocking; they are really bad and we have got a huge amount of work to do to rebuild trust,” said chairman of the board Stewart Baird.

Only 45.13% of staff said “If a friend or relative needed treatment I would be happy with the standard of care” at the trust, while the average across the NHS was 63.32%.

At the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, the result was 74%.

Only 60.55% of workers in East Kent said that care of patients and users is the trust’s “top priority” - also the worst of the 122 NHS trusts that run hospitals, and much worse than Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, where the result was 80.5%.

East Kent hospitals was also the worst of any acute trust on agreeing with the statement “we each have a voice that counts” - with an average score of only 6.21 out of 10.

“It is awful, there’s no other word for it,” added Mr Baird.

Andrea Ashman, chief people officer at the trust, said the 41% response rate from staff was “below the national average of 46%”.

“So it’s a minority response - we didn’t even make 50% of the organisation,” she said.

“We know there are people who didn’t respond because they felt there was no point in responding because not much would change.”

Ms Ashman described the trust being the worst of 122 acute trusts on three measures as “a shocking indictment of us as an organisation”.

The board has “touched base” with approximately 750 staff about the results “through a series of executive-led listening events”, she added.

It comes as East Kent Hospitals has been embroiled in crisis for years.

In March, KentOnline reported that the trust had the seventh highest number of A&E patients waiting over 12 hours for a bed in England, and only 45% were seen within the target time of four hours.

Maternity services have also been under fire - in October 2022 the independent Kirkup Review found that 45 baby deaths at the trust since 2009 could likely have been prevented with proper care.

In January 2023, the trust’s maternity services were inspected again by the Care Quality Commission, and the report released in May said they were still “inadequate”.

The trust is also in a financial mess. Having originally planned a deficit of £72m in the 2023/24 financial year, East Kent Hospitals ended up with a £117.4m black hole.

Now. it must save £49m over 2024/25 to make up for it, and is currently aiming for a draft deficit of £85.8m by April 2025.

The trust’s chief finance officer, Tim Glenn, explained in the board meeting they have 73 different savings schemes in the works.

He said reducing patients’ time in hospital is a key cash-saving plan to help pull itself from the doldrums.

“What we’re aiming to do for the last year is bring that length of stay down, process more patients through our hospitals in a timelier way, deliver better care for patients and as a consequence of that, hold our cost base steady but see more work through that cost base,” he said.

“We’re not looking to cut services, we’re looking to improve the services we’re providing to patients.”

Ms Ashman added: “We are in a situation where we are being required to make some quite serious changes to the composition of our workforce.

“In common with other NHS organisations we are being asked to reduce the numbers of staff that we have,” she said, referring to a recent consultation with admin staff on possible job cuts.

However, after the meeting, a trust spokesperson told KentOnline: “The £49m savings programme does not include plans to make redundancies; where reductions in staff posts are made, we aim to redeploy affected staff wherever possible.”