A campaign has been launched to help staff at Mid Essex Hospitals Trust to escape red tape.

The Break Free project is being run by the trust's Improving Working Lives project board throughout May.

More than 3,600 staff will be given the chance to influence the way the trust is run by pointing out the unnecessary rules, paperwork and bureaucracy which slow them down.

Trust directors will be holding road shows at Broomfield and St John's hospitals to encourage staff to take part and air their views.

Suggestion cards have been handed out so that people can tell trust bosses about any of its working practices that prevent them from doing their job efficiently.

All the suggestion cards will be carefully analysed and a work programme will then be drawn up to implement the best ideas.

Nick Groves, the Trust's Director of Workforce Development, said, "The NHS has grown lots of procedures over the years.

"Mostly these are to do with controlling expenditure in one way or another and each one tends to be bolted on to the last one. They are all well intentioned, but over time many have just become outdated, cumbersome red tape.

"Front-line staff are the experts in caring for patients. We want to find out what it is that's making that job harder."

Published Tuesday, May 20, 2003

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