ICB Watch · NW NHS workforce evidence

Tameside & Glossop (Acute · Greater Manchester)

2026/27 — the year ahead

No 2026/27 workforce target published — none appears in the public papers we hold. iWhat does a “workforce reduction” mean? Not always people losing their jobs. Boards count in WTE — units of one full-time post — and the routes differ in who they touch. Cutting agency work: paid work lost, but no NHS post existed. Cutting bank shifts: extra shifts mostly worked by the trust’s own staff — a pay cut that never shows in post counts. Freezing vacancies: no one is dismissed, but the post and its future job go, and the work lands on those who remain. Deleting posts shrinks the establishment itself. Voluntary exits: MARS is a paid resignation without redundancy rights; voluntary redundancy is redundancy on volunteered terms. Compulsory redundancy is the rarest route — boards report it separately in their audited accounts.
Last year
Missed its 2025/26 workforce plan. 155 WTE above plan at February 2026, worsening from 68 in December; the trust’s June 2026 annual review rates its M12 workforce plan ‘delivered’ against a planned establishment of 4,512.78 WTE, without giving the actual. 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 69 whole-time-equivalent (WTE) posts (+1.6%). The audited accounts record 1 compulsory redundancy in 2025/26.
Who was cut

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

NHS infrastructure support
−14
Central functions
−7.5
Support to clinical staff
−6.0
Hotel, property & estates
−3.5
Senior managers
−3.0
Managers
+0.4
Professionally qualified clinical staff
+88
Risks it carries
The board’s own risk register scores 5 risks at 15 or more out of 25 iHow risk scores work. Boards score each risk out of 25 (how likely × how serious). We mark every score of 15 or more red — the range treated as very high or extreme. The highest of them:
  • “Failure to maintain suitability of premises and environments” — 20 of 25 — the condition of buildings and estates
  • “Failure to achieve mandatory access standards for urgent & emergency care” — 16 of 25 — pressure on waiting times, access and capacity
  • “Failure to deliver annual revenue and capital financial plans — ESCALATED Q3 2025/26” — 16 of 25 — financial pressure
Failure to maintain suitability of premises and environments which may lead to increased health & safety incidents, breach of regulation and suboptimal patient and staff experience.
Principal Risk 6.1 - Failure to deliver annual revenue (including cash) and capital financial plans: Increased from 16 (Impact 4 x Likelihood 4) to 20 (Impact 4 x Likelihood 5), reflecting acknowledgement that the Trust will not achieve its annual revenue plan as set out at the beginning of the financial year. Further to this, and as previously reported to the Board, a control total of a £7.5m deficit has been agreed with Greater Manchester ICB and the NHS England Regional Team. A residual risk of £1.8m remains against delivery of the control total, which continues to be managed through rigorous expenditure control and ongoing balance sheet review.
What staff say
31.5%say there are enough staff to do their jobtheir benchmark group: 31.3%
33.0%often or always feel burnt outtheir benchmark group: 32.4%
28.9%often think about leavingtheir benchmark group: 29.9%
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
  • T&G workforce-above-plan WORSENING — +68 above (M9) → +155 above (M11) T&G Combined Public Board March 2026 — Workforce report M11 · p.103
  • T&G 2025/26 opening net WTE reduction — 113 WTE (May 2025 board) Combined Papers — May 2025 Public Board Meeting · p.79
  • T&G's WTE remained above plan at December 2025 (M9), with in-year reductions 'unlikely' — planned reduction not on course (joint board minutes with Stockport, 29 Jan 2026). Minutes of the joint Stockport / Tameside & Glossop board of 29 January 2026 (item 160/25 Finance Report), in the Combined Public Board pack of 26 March 2026 · p.9
  • T&G runs a weekly Staffing Approval Group (recruitment/vacancy control). Tameside & Glossop Combined Public Board papers — January 2026
  • Audited exit packages, 2025/26. Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust — Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26, exit packages note (subject to audit) · p.76
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.
Deficitspending more than the money coming in. A trust whose plan is a deficit is planning to end the year in the red by that amount.
MARS“mutually agreed resignation scheme” — a voluntary paid-exit scheme.
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.
Benchmark groupthe set of similar trusts NHS England compares each trust with in the staff survey.
ICB“integrated care board” — the NHS body that plans and funds care for an area.