The date has been set for a High Court confrontation between former hospitals chief executive Rose Gibb and her ex-employer.

Monday, January 26, will mark the start of the action by Miss Gibb, who is suing the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, demanding a minimum payment of £250,000.

Miss Gibb resigned her £150,000 a year role just before a damning Healthcare Commission report revealed the superbug

C-diff had claimed around 90 lives between 2004 and 2006.

Her union, Managers In Partnership, said the trust could still settle out of court, despite the date being confirmed.

Jon Restell, the union’s chief executive, said: “There is nothing to indicate at the moment that the trust wants to settle out of court.

“But we have rarely ever gone to court with any of our other cases. Sometimes a settlement has even been negotiated on the court steps.”

Mr Restell added: “It is clear any trial is potentially going to be more embarrassing for the trust and the government than it will be for Rose.”

Miss Gibb has already been offered £75,000, representing six months’ salary, the legal minimum the trust said it could pay, three months after Health Secretary Alan Johnson stepped in to halt any pay-off.

However, court papers claim she negotiated a written deal, called a Compromise Agreement, worth £250,000, shortly before her departure on October 5, 2007. Her legal action is aimed at recovering the balance of that sum, worth £174,573, plus interest.

Meanwhile, for the first time in NHS history, Mr Johnson has used a new power to approve a vastly enhanced salary for the trust’s new chairman.

The role has been filled on an interim basis since November by George Jenkins. Despite three recruitment drives, a suitable candidate has not been found to take it on permanently.

Normal salary bands for a chairman, which is a public appointment, not a job, are set by the Department of Health at £18,164 to £23,020.

But the trust’s new chairman will be in line for £44,000 a year for three to three-and-a-half days spent on trust duties.

Sue Wright, of the Appointments Commission, which handles public appointments to healthcare trusts, said: “We hope the increased remuneration will help us attract an inspirational and visionary leader.”