ICB Watch · NW NHS workforce evidence

Wirral University Teaching Hospital (Acute · Cheshire & Merseyside)

2026/27 — the year ahead

£30.7mthe savings this board must find in 2026/27.2026/27 CIP target — 6%; risk-adjusted delivery forecast £23.0m at M1.
The trust's savings (CIP) target converted into posts (cip-equivalent).
Last year
No 2025/26 workforce reduction target found in the papers we hold. No substantive cut (CIP + vacancy control). How they went about it: recruitment controls operated. Against the workforce plan it submitted to NHS England for 2025/26, the trust ended March 2026 5.8% 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 count is not usable for this trust this year. Whole services — and their staff — moved between organisations during the year, so the count would mix those transfers with genuine cuts. Documented: corporate services moved between Wirral Community and Wirral University Teaching as part of partnership working between the trusts — documented, Data Quality Annex entry DQ525. The board’s own programme figures above are the usable evidence here.
Risks it carries
The board’s own risk register scores 6 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 effectively manage unscheduled care demand” — 20 of 25 — pressure on waiting times, access and capacity
  • “Fail to manage our finances effectively and deliver value for money” — 20 of 25 — financial pressure
  • “Failure to ensure adequate quality of care, safety and patient experience” — 16 of 25 — risk to quality and safety of care
Failure to ensure adequate quality of care resulting in adverse patient outcomes and an increase in patient complaints
Failure to achieve the full recurrent CIP plan would mean that the cash trajectory cannot be achieved.
What staff say
24.3%say there are enough staff to do their jobtheir benchmark group: 31.3%
37.0%often or always feel burnt outtheir benchmark group: 32.4%
36.8%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
  • WUTH 2026/27 CIP target equates to 305 WTE Wirral Group Board, 3 June 2026 · p.72
  • Wirral University (WUTH) imposed a non-clinical vacancy freeze (deficit acute, controls-led, no substantive cut). Wirral Group Board (WUTH+WCHC) — 1 April 2026
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.
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.