Board diversity is central to our approach to recruiting Non-Executive Directors and Associate Non-Executive Directors. A diverse Board brings broader perspectives, a better understanding of the communities we serve and stronger decision-making.

Our Board members: 23 per cent of our Board are from a  global majority group and 17 per cent have a declared disability

We actively seek people whose lived experiences, backgrounds, skills and perspectives complement those already represented on the Board. Our recruitment information makes clear that different experiences and voices are important to us.

We encourage applications from under-represented groups, including people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds. This helps us widen representation and improve diversity at Board level.

Associate Non-Executive Director roles support succession planning and offer a development route for people without extensive Board-level experience. This broadens the future talent pipeline and helps us build a more diverse Board over time.

We collect diversity information to assess whether our recruitment process offers equality of opportunity. This information is used only for monitoring and does not influence selection decisions.

We also track anonymised diversity data at each recruitment stage, from longlisting to interview. This helps us understand the diversity of the candidate pool and decide whether to extend the application period or use additional approaches to attract a broader range of applicants.

We are pleased to be part of wave two of the NHS Advanced Foundation Trust programme.

Achieving Advanced Foundation Trust status would provide external recognition of the strength of our leadership, governance, quality of care and partnership working. It would also create greater opportunities to share innovation and best practice across the NHS, learn from other high-performing organisations, and continue improving services for the communities we serve.

Most importantly, the benefits would be felt by patients and local communities. Advanced Foundation Trust status would support our ambition to deliver consistently high-quality care, improve patient experience and help reduce health inequalities across Kent and Medway.

Key opportunities include:

1. Improving population health outcomes by using our scale, data, clinical expertise and partnerships to move from reactive care towards proactive population health management, particularly for people at greatest risk of deterioration or hospital admission.
2. Delivering the shift from hospital to community care through neighbourhood teams, urgent community response, Home First, Hospital at Home, frailty pathways and integrated rehabilitation models.
3. Reducing unwarranted variation by building on our integration with MCH, developing consistent community pathways with equitable access and outcomes across Kent and Medway.

Strengthening system delivery infrastructure by providing leadership, coordination and operational oversight across neighbourhoods and multi-neighbourhoods, working through provider collaboratives and alliances

KCHFT believes neighbourhood health is about creating shared accountability across organisations, not simply transferring tasks from one service to another.

Success will be measured through agreed outcomes, such as reducing hospital admissions, improving patient experience and delivering more integrated care.

The Trust is testing this approach in Folkestone and Hythe, where early results show fewer admissions among people with complex needs.

The Board will gain assurance through monitoring patient outcomes, patient experience and safety data, and by developing joint governance arrangements so partners learn from incidents together rather than separately.

The aim is to reduce the gaps between organisations that can lead to poorer care, while making sure people experience joined-up support from one team.

Reducing health inequalities is one of our key strategic priorities at KCHFT and the Board takes its responsibility for addressing this very seriously. We are committed to making sure people can access high-quality community healthcare regardless of their background, circumstances or where they live.

As a Board, we oversee the delivery of our Health Inequalities Plan through regular review of outcomes, targeted investment and ongoing service improvement. We use population health data to understand where the greatest need exists and to help direct our efforts towards communities experiencing the poorest health outcomes.

This includes:
• Focusing health visiting and school nursing support on children and families living in our most deprived communities, helping to give every child the best possible start in life.
• Improving access to services for people with learning disabilities and autistic people through tailored support and reasonable adjustments.
• Working closely with local authorities and voluntary sector partners to reach people who may face barriers to accessing healthcare.

We know that reducing health inequalities is a long-term challenge and one that cannot be addressed by any single organisation alone. That is why partnership working, listening to our communities and continually monitoring the impact of our actions are so important.
Ultimately, we will judge our success not just by the services we deliver, but by whether we are making a meaningful difference in reducing avoidable and unfair differences in health outcomes across Kent and Medway.

KCHFT is committed to understanding the needs of disabled and neurodivergent, patients, service users and carers, including people with long-term health conditions. This supports our Equality Act 2010 duties and our aim to be inclusive and accessible.

How we identify needs:
• We take feedback from patients, carers, colleagues and communities though our engagement team and service-specific user groups
• staff networks and staff engagement
• involvement activities and work with communities and representative groups.
• patient and staff surveys
• complaints and compliments
• equality monitoring and impact assessments

We follow the Accessible Information Standard so people receive accessible information and communication support where needed.

We will continue listening to disabled colleagues, patients, service users and carers as we improve access to support through neighbourhood health, providing care closer to home.

This is a question for the ICB. We have passed on to them for submission at their AGM.

We are moving towards a digital-first, but not digital-only, approach. Patients can already use e-booking in selected services to book, reschedule or cancel appointments, with appointment information made available digitally. We are also digitising correspondence directly and capturing patients’ communication preferences. Paper and alternative formats will remain available, particularly for digitally excluded patients.

Yes, we are linking with the NHS App, using PathEKS (patient engagement portal) to connect to our patient record systems. As of September 2026, the integration is in the final stages of user acceptance testing, with onboarding planned with NHSE. The initial focus is appointment information and requests to amend or cancel appointments. Later phases plan to add letters, clinical documents, questionnaires and patient-initiated follow-up. Current NHS App scope is primarily patients aged 16+ in Rio-based services.

As the query did not specify a location, this response relates to Deal and Folkestone.

In general terms, patients attending UTC are prioritised according to clinical need, using the Manchester Triage system, which means that patients are not seen in order of arrival. Patients may also arrive and leave the waiting area because they need further assessment or investigation, such as an X-ray, or due to seeing more than one clinician as part of their care.

With regards to our own UTCs, these are the most recent results for usage, showing they are almost at capacity.

June 2026:

Deal 99.8%

Folkestone 99.1%

Past 12 months:

Deal 99.88%

Folkestone 99.1%

KCHFT is a key partner in the Kent and Medway programme to end corridor care. We work with hospital, mental health, ambulance and social care colleagues to improve how patients move between services.
Our teams help by:
• assessing and treating people at home through Urgent Care Response and Hospital at Home services
• helping people leave hospital safely through our discharge teams and Transfer of Care hubs
• supporting recovery at home through our Home First teams
• reducing stays in community hospital beds, so more patients can move from acute hospitals.

Reducing waiting times
We monitor waiting lists closely and prioritise patients according to clinical need. We improve services and care pathways to reduce delays. We also use technology and better administrative and scheduling processes to reduce paperwork, giving clinicians more time to care for patients.

Over the past year, we have made progress in developing our catering provision, including the recent introduction of a trial menu at both Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital (QVMH) and Tonbridge Hospital. This work was undertaken in direct response to patient feedback, which highlighted the need for a broader range of options to better meet specific dietary requirements and preferences. The trial menu has expanded the choice available to patients, staff, and visitors and has received positive feedback, providing valuable insight to inform future menu development and service improvements.

As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we have drafted proposals for further menu developments, including a greater range of plant-based options to support both healthier eating and sustainability objectives.

While delivery of these changes was delayed due to the need to focus resources on essential catering compliance requirements during a period of vacancy within the dedicated lead role, the position has now been filled and this work is actively being progressed.

While we have not formally liaised with Plant-Based Health Professionals during the past year, we recognise the principles of the campaign and are committed to continuing to develop our menu offer, including increasing the variety of plant-based options across our services.

We recognise that change can create uncertainty and pressure. As we develop neighbourhood health services and integrate with Medway Community Healthcare, colleague wellbeing remains a priority.

We listen through wellbeing conversations, staff surveys, staff networks, workplace adjustment discussions and occupational health referrals. This helps us understand concerns and respond effectively.

Colleagues can hear from senior leaders and ask questions through all-trust webinars, conferences and dedicated engagement sessions. Questions can be submitted in advance or anonymously.

Health and Wellbeing Champions, Inclusion Ambassadors, Staff Network representatives and our six staff governors help colleagues access support and ensure their views inform decisions.

Our Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Health and Wellbeing team works with managers and colleagues to offer advice, support and workplace adjustments.

Practical support includes:
• additional leave for colleagues with long-term health conditions, disabilities or caring responsibilities
• a health and wellbeing passport
• workplace adjustments
• flexible and hybrid working
• occupational health and wellbeing services
• confidential employee assistance
• learning and development
• wellbeing resources and events.

The AGM/AMM format is reviewed each year with governors and approved by the Council of Governors.

We have previously held in-person events, but attendance was often low, and we have found that online meetings are generally more accessible and attract greater participation.

Holding the event online and in the evening makes it easier for members, Governors and the public to attend, particularly those who may be unable to join during the working day. We are asking people to provide us with feedback on the event via an online survey

EKHUFT have confirmed that the critical incident experienced was not cyber related, it was a general IT issue.

KCHFT have developed and use a cyber risk mitigation strategy that uses a number of actions to mitigate and minimise the risk of a cyber incident impacting the trust.

We work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS cyber security teams across the country and our region. By working together, we can better protect our services, systems and information from cyber threats.

This joint approach has helped us maintain recognised national cyber security standards. In the past six months, we again met the cyber security requirements of the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit and renewed our Cyber Essentials Plus certification from the National Cyber Security Centre.

These independent standards provide assurance that we have effective measures in place to protect our systems and the information that they hold.