A hospital trust is among the “most challenged” in the country, as it faces a deficit of nearly £70m.

The financial troubles of East Kent Hospitals Foundation Trust (EKHT) are so severe it remains under NHS England oversight, with bosses calling in independent consultants to explain the reasons behind their struggles.

The trust’s board of directors were told during a meeting last Thursday that at the end of October it had recorded a black hole of £68.2 million. That is £22.7 million more than planned by this point in the year.

Continuing at the current rate would see the deficit rise to well above the £72 million hoped for by April 2024.

The trust, which runs Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, as well as sites in Ashford, Canterbury, Folkestone and Dover, has failed consistently to deliver savings it planned to make over this financial year.

New chief financial officer Tim Glenn, parachuted in from Royal Papworth Hospital Trust in Cambridge on a one-year secondment told the board the financial woes are “an outlier nationally”.

He said: “I don’t need to tell the board that the cost improvement plan delivery this year has been far from ideal; we need a much, much better position from that.

“We’re working really hard to get those programmes of work up and running we’ve got some additional support coming in to make sure that we kick on with them at pace.”

Richard Oirschot, chairman of the finance committee, added: “Very little progress has been made in achieving the savings.”

Chair of the board Niall Dickson later explained that the trust is in level 4 of the NHS Oversight Framework, “designed for the most challenged organisations”.

“We have a desire and a plan to move ourselves out of that but as I think everyone knows it’s been extremely challenging,” he said.

NHS papers describe this level of oversight from NHS England as being for bodies with “very serious, complex issues manifesting as critical quality and/or finance concerns that require intensive support”.

‘Very little progress has been made in achieving the savings...’

The trust was scheduled to move to a reduced level of oversight in March 2024, but Moira Durbridge of NHS England said during the meeting: “We can all see here that we’re not going to meet the requirements for that.”

A spokesperson for the trust confirmed that a revised forecast will be presented to the board in the new year.

When coffers are empty, NHS trusts have their spending reforecasted through a process called the National Protocol, and working with NHS England, new funding is made available.

In 2012 the South London NHS Healthcare Trust, which ran three hospitals, was axed in the face of severe financial woes.

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

It is rare for NHS trusts to fall into such a situation, but when facing especially severe financial crises they can be placed into administration, special measures, or scrapped, and their services taken on by other bodies instead.

East Kent Hospitals has commissioned consultancy giant Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC) to write a report on the drivers behind its swelling deficit, expected before the end of the month.

When asked why the trust needs external support to explain the reasons, Mr Glenn said: “It’s really really important that we have a baseline that everyone understands, that is independently verified.”

Previously, an unplanned pay award and strike action have been given as some of the reasons for the deficit.

The William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Buckland Hospital in Dover and Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone, are all of part of EKHT.