COLCHESTER'S troubled hospital trust is set to recruit two more top level managers in its ongoing drive to improve patient care.

The trust, facing a deficit of more than £40million, will employ a managing director and a director of operations.

The move is being instigated by chief executive Nick Hulme, who will remain overall man in charge of both Colchester's hospital trust and Ipswich's, a role he has done since May.

The role of the managing director has been described as a "site manager" who will report to Mr Hulme.

Staff have also been told of a restructure to Colchester's five clinical divisions to reduce them to three, like at Ipswich.

It is unclear whether this will result in any redundancies.

An advertisement for the managing director at the Colchester site has gone out.

It states: "Since inspection in 2013 Colchester Hospital remains in special measures. Consequently, the Trust is looking for a Managing Director to establish a long-term, clinically and financially viable transformation plan so that we can deliver the very best patient care. For the right candidate, this presents an exciting opportunity.

"You will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the Trust. Leading clinical and operational strategy and performance will be your focus, whilst ensuring we meet financial and governance requirements."

Applications closed last Monday and the selection process will take place on October 11.

A similar set up exists at Broomfield and at Basildon hospitals, where the managing directors since spring this year have been Jane Hunt and Steve McManus respectively, and the chief executive is Clare Panniker.

Trust chairman David White told Colchester's board governors: "We will be interviewing in the second week of October.

"Barbara Stuttle is retiring so we will be interviewing for a director of nursing and having spoken to HR we have got some good candidates for that.

"That will be mid-October.

"And we are also looking for a Director of Operations."

The current interim role of chief operations officer at Colchester will go, under the new management structure.

Mr White added: "There are a lot of staff changes in terms of new faces and also some changes in roles."

Mr White, who is also chairman of Ipswich's trust, told governors the move to bring some clinical divisions together was to make "people accountable", adding that he liked a "clear line of sight."

Mr Hulme was not at Thursday's governors' meeting so Mr White said he was reluctant to give further details of the proposals.

However, he later added: “The chief executive and I are reviewing the way that the trust is functioning and felt we needed to strengthen the senior management capacity.”

The five divisions at Colchester are Medicine, Surgical, Urgent care, Women and Children's Services and Cancer and Clinical support.

A consultation into changing the divisions has recently ended and proposes the three new divisions will be Medical, Surgical and finally Women and Children's Services which will be merged with Cancer and Clinical support.

Urgent care will fall under the umbrella of Medicine.

In an email sent to staff, Mr Hulme said: "I anticipate that this will streamline some of our operational work and release more time for caring and running our services well.

"In the meantime, one of the first partnership tasks is to create a clear framework for partnership [...]

"It is important not to implement any changes without following all the normal routes of governance and the scheme of delegation currently in operation."