ICB Watch · NW NHS workforce evidence

Pennine Care (Mental Health · Greater Manchester)

2026/27 — the year ahead

£17.8mthe savings this board must find in 2026/27.2026/27 Value Improvement Programme target.
No target to cut permanent (substantive) posts published — its 2026/27 commitments are to temporary staffing only: agency spend down 30% (working to zero by 2029/30) and bank down 10%.
Last year
Cut posts in 2025/26 — its figure counts agency staff — and still finished above its workforce plan. Met its agency target (a 40% reduction) but not its bank target (a 15% reduction, 200 WTE) — ‘continued high bank usage on inpatient units’; permanent staffing ran below the operational plan as corporate roles went into the savings programme. National payroll figures show that over roughly the same period (April 2025 to April 2026) the trust’s workforce grew by 152 whole-time-equivalent (WTE) posts (+3.7%). The audited accounts record 8 compulsory redundancies in 2025/26.
Who was cut

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

Central functions
−12
NHS infrastructure support
−4.3
Managers
−4.0
Senior managers
−1.1
Hotel, property & estates
+12
Support to clinical staff
+34
Professionally qualified clinical staff
+122
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
37.5%say there are enough staff to do their jobtheir benchmark group: 36.5%
29.9%often or always feel burnt outtheir benchmark group: 27.1%
31.0%often think about leavingtheir benchmark group: 27.5%
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: a further reason stated in its papers. 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
  • Pennine Care 2025/26 bank staff REDUCTION target — 200 WTE / 15% reduction (8 May 2025) Public Trust Board 8 May 2025 · p.67
  • Pennine Care 2025/26 agency staff REDUCTION target — 39 WTE / 40% reduction (8 May 2025) Public Trust Board 8 May 2025 · p.67
  • Pennine Care's 2025/26 bank-staff reduction target (15%, 200 WTE —) was NOT met: the trust's year-end review of its improvement priorities records 'continued high bank usage on inpatient units'. Pennine Care Board Papers 6 May 2026 (pack pages 296-end) — 2025/26 improvement priorities year-end review, 'Reduce temporary staffing in line with agreed targets' · p.71
  • Audited exit packages, 2025/26. Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust — Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26, exit packages note (subject to audit) · p.69
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”).
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.