EXCLUSIVE: CRISIS hit Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust is to be run by a part-time boss, the Gazette has learned.

The trust, which is proposing to close maternity units in Devizes and Malmesbury, and has already closed beds at both Devizes and Malmesbury hospitals as part of plans to save £10 million over the next three years, has been without a permanent chief executive since Barbara Smith resigned in September.

Now the job is to go to someone who is already in a similar post at another health trust who will have to juggle the demands of the Kennet and North Wiltshire trust at the same time.

Paula Winchcombe, the mayor of Devizes and chairman of DASH2, the action group set up to save services at Devizes Hospital, said: "Having a part-time chief executive at the trust shows an appalling disregard for feeling among people in the community who are fighting to save hospital services.

"They are down-grading the job and it is another indication of their penny pinching attitude."

The trust, based at Southgate House, Pans Lane, Devizes, was also criticised this week by Devizes MP Michael Ancram who was outraged that his letter objecting to the proposed closure of Devizes Maternity Unit, was not circulated to the trust's board when it met at the town hall last week.

Mr Ancram said: "As this letter was written in my capacity as the local Member of Parliament and as the PCT, through the health service, is ultimately accountable to Parliament, I believe this was not only a gross discourtesy but a contempt.

"I fear that this was typical of the general lack of sensitivity to local opinion displayed by the board on this issue and it most severely undermines confidence that the promised consultation will be genuine."

The trust, which received a zero rating in national performance ratings in July, is currently being run on a job share basis by Stephen Golledge and Mike Theelke, both senior directors of West Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust.

They are due to leave on December 31 and the board of the Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT together with the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority, have decided to offer the job of chief executive to another chief executive in the region.

Nine PCTs who all received at least a one-star rating have been invited to apply to run Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT. The deadline for applications was Monday, and an appointment will be made in the middle of December.

It is understood that West Gloucestershire PCT has not submitted an application.

Geoff Scaife, the chief executive of the strategic health authority, said the successful chief executive would have to continue running their own PCT as well as Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT.

But he said the new chief executive might use his or her own existing director colleagues to help.

Mr Scaife said: "We felt that simply replacing a chief executive that had departed would not be enough. It was our judgement that the team at Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT wasn't as strong as it needed to be.

"It was a relatively inexperienced team that was recruited, and if we can get experienced people from another PCT, they can bolster the existing team.

"We are breaking new ground with this approach although it has happened at PCTs in other areas of the country. Single people can run two organisations.

"I am confident it can work at Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT."

The salary package has not been finalised but Mr Scaife said the new chief executive would not double their salary.