NHS staff across the county are being invited to resign as part of plans to cut costs.

Two Kent trusts have entered into a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS), allowing employees to leave in return for a severance payout, while another has confirmed it will be making redundancies.

MARS was developed to help the NHS manage workforce changes and address some of the financial challenges it is facing.

It can create vacancies that can be filled by the redeployment of staff from other jobs or as an alternative for staff facing redundancy.

However, a trade union has argued workers deserve “fairness, transparency and stability, not short-term fixes”.

Both Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and Medway NHS Foundation Trust have confirmed they are taking part in the scheme.

They have said t

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