ICB Watch · NW NHS workforce evidence

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre (Acute-Specialist · Cheshire & Merseyside)

2026/27 — the year ahead

£8.9mthe savings this board must find in 2026/27.2026/27 efficiency target.
The exception — with a caveat: the 3-year plan pairs a small trim of directly employed posts (12.85 WTE a year) with funded investment, so the TOTAL workforce grows slightly (+8.49 WTE by March 2029). Neither half of that pairing should be quoted alone.
Last year
Cut posts in 2025/26 — its figure counts a cost saving expressed as WTE posts. 63.7 of a 70 WTE planned reduction delivered (91%) via CIP. How they went about it: recruitment controls operated. National payroll figures show that over roughly the same period (April 2025 to April 2026) the trust’s workforce grew by 29 whole-time-equivalent (WTE) posts (+1.6%). The audited accounts record no compulsory redundancies in 2025/26. Against the workforce plan it submitted to NHS England for 2025/26, the trust ended March 2026 0.2% above the level its own plan set for that month, counting total staff in post (substantive plus bank and agency) (read from the Cheshire & Merseyside system report’s monitoring chart).
Who was cut

The national payroll change above, broken down by staff group (April 2025 to April 2026):

Support to clinical staff
−52
Senior managers
−1.3
Managers
+3.3
Professionally qualified clinical staff
+34
Central functions
+45
NHS infrastructure support
+47
Risks it carries
We do not hold this trust’s board risk register. This is a gap in our evidence, not a statement that the board records no serious risks. Ask your trust to publish its Board Assurance Framework with its board papers.
What staff say
38.7%say there are enough staff to do their jobtheir benchmark group: 41.4%
31.1%often or always feel burnt outtheir benchmark group: 28.8%
27.5%often think about leavingtheir benchmark group: 26.9%
NHS Staff Survey 2025 · compared with similar trusts iNHS Staff Survey 2025. The comparison figure is the average of the trust’s own “benchmark group” — the set of similar trusts NHS England compares it with.
Why the cuts?
The trust’s own papers state why it is reducing its workforce: its savings programme (what the NHS calls a cost improvement programme, CIP). iThese are the reasons the trust itself gives for its workforce reduction, coded from its public board papers. Wider pressures — on services, waiting times or safety — appear under “Risks it carries”, from the board’s own risk register.
On the record — the board’s own papers & where every figure comes from
  • Clatterbridge 2025/26 PLANNED WTE reduction — 70 WTE via CIP achievement (workforce plan) Trust Board Pack October 2025 · p.179
  • Clatterbridge 2025/26 WTE reduction delivered via CIP, M12 — 63.7 WTE (CIP-equivalent, 91% of the 70 WTE CIP plan) Trust Board Pack May 2026 · p.140
  • Clatterbridge 3-year workforce plan: 2% substantive WTE reduction over three years (12.85 WTE per year), offset by funded investment — the radiation services bid and the CAMRIN TUPE-in (Q1 26/27) (net total workforce INCREASES by 8.49 WTE over the period). Clatterbridge Public Board Pack — April 2026 (3-Year Workforce Plan slide) · p.107
  • Clatterbridge runs a weekly Establishment Control Panel. Clatterbridge Cancer Centre Board — May 2026
  • Audited exit packages, 2025/26. The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust — Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26, exit packages note (Table 18 and accounts note 4.4) · p.155
Sources: the trust’s own board papers (cited above) · NHS England workforce statistics (Apr→Apr, our arithmetic) · NHS Staff Survey 2025 · every figure is traceable to the evidence ledger on the audit twin of this page
Plain-English key
WTE / FTEtwo names for the same measure — one full-time post’s worth of paid staff time (two half-time staff count as one). It is a unit of time, not a count of people: a reduction of 100 WTE can mean fewer people, fewer hours, or fewer bank and agency shifts, and is usually a mix. Boards plan and report in WTE across all staff — permanent, bank and agency together — and so does this card, which says which of those a figure counts. Boards write WTE (“whole-time equivalent”); the national statistics write FTE (“full-time equivalent”).
CIP“cost improvement programme” — the NHS term for a savings plan.
Establishmentthe number of funded posts a trust plans to employ — its budgeted staffing level — whether or not each post is filled. Removing a vacancy from the establishment cuts the planned staffing level without anyone losing a job.
Substantivepermanently employed staff, as opposed to bank or agency staff.
Benchmark groupthe set of similar trusts NHS England compares each trust with in the staff survey.