Health services in Kent and Medway are poised for a radical overhaul under secretive plans being developed by the NHS.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STP) partners hospital trusts with councils and other organisations in 44 areas across England to decide how people will be treated in future.

It is also a bid to make £22billion of cuts by 2020.

As reported exclusively in the Kent Messenger last month, Glenn Douglas is Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust’s chief executive and chairman of the Kent and Medway STP steering group.

It will play a leading role deciding health care provision for 1.8 million people in the area, plus eight clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and some of the most financially challenged hospital trusts in the country.

According to the public plan, the NHS in Kent and Medway anticipates a fall in income of between 10-20% by 2021.

Analysis released today by campaign group 38 Degrees suggests a possible deficit of £719 million by the end of the decade.

No other details about Kent and Medway's STP have so far been made public.

Individual trust's deficits for 2015-16 are £52.5m for Medway Foundation Trust, more than £30m for East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust and about £10.5m to date for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Foundation Trust (MTW).

Last month MTW was placed into financial special measures over its forcast £23 million deficit.

Campaigners believe STPs are the vehicle through which A&E departments will be closed and other services privatised. So far there has been no public consultation.

There is also a lingering suspicion among campaigners from the National Health Action Party Maidstone Hospital's A&E could be in the firing line.

In 2011 Maidstone Hospital saw the loss of emergency trauma care to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, despite a seven-year campaign.

At the trust’s board meeting last month Mr Douglas said members had not yet discussed any potential changes to Maidstone Hospital’s A&E, and the focus had so far been on potential new elective and rehab centres.

He added any closure would also be impossible unless a new ‘service point’ was created to accommodate the huge numbers of patients seen.

He later added: “There is broad agreement changes are needed to how we live, how we access care, and how care is delivered. This doesn’t mean doing less for patients or reducing quality.

“It means more preventative care; finding new ways to meet people’s needs and identifying ways to do things more efficiently.”

The trust’s two hospitals see more than 300 visitors a day and the numbers are rising.

Dr Paul Hobday, interim leader of the National Health Action Party, is in no doubt the STP will lead to the closure of at least one Kent A&E with Maidstone Hospital the most likely choice.

The retired Sutton Valence GP said: “STPs, in our opinion, are all to do with reducing services and trying to fund them with a greatly reduced amount of health care.”

Maidstone and Medway area was due to submit plans in June, with implementation beginning in October.