The trust plans to cut 160 beds across its five hospitals

East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs hospitals in Folkestone, Margate, Dover, Ashford and Canterbury, plans to make savings over the next two years.

The trust has said it is being forced to make the savings because it is getting �20m less from the government.

Measures also include reducing how long patients stay in hospital.

We want to ensure that we don't put patients at risk David Astley, East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust

The trust is the latest in England to announce cost-saving measures in an attempt to balance the books.

Hundreds of job cuts are to be made across the NHS amid concern that patient care could be affected.

Chief Executive David Astley said the trust was looking at ways in which it could reduce its dependency on temporary staff, which cost �20m a year.

It currently has 800 vacancies, but he said there would not be a complete freeze on filling jobs.

'Quality service'

He said a lot of treatments had already been transferred to day surgery as part of money-saving measures.

"We treat more patients on a day case basis, or even an outpatient clinic, where we can do a lot of treatments now compared to what it used to be," he said.

Mr Astley said decisions still had to be made as to which hospital wards would be affected by the cut in beds.