Staff at Epsom and St Helier Hospitals have been asked give up part of their holiday entitlement to help the hospital trust cut £30m from its budget.

In an email to staff last week Samantha Jones, chief executive of the Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust, suggested a number of ways staff could personally help the trust plug the deficit.

She said: “A number of you have said that you would be willing to 'sacrifice' some of your annual leave and come to work instead.

“It might seem obvious but each and every day off in the organisation costs the trust money. This is particularly true if a member of bank or agency staff has to be hired to cover for your post.

“I fully support this idea and in fact I have decided to work on one of my annual leave days. If everybody agreed to work just one annual leave day, it would make a significant contribution in helping achieve our goal.”

Mrs Jones said staff in many NHS trusts were also agreeing to reduce their contracted hours, and so their salaries, between now and March and she encouraged staff to discuss the possibility with their line managers and the human resources department.

The email has sparked outrage from unions and pressure groups who have called it a “disgrace” not least because Mrs Jones herself is believed to be on a six-figure salary and has announced she will leave the trust at the end of December.

Geoff Martin, chairman of NHS pressure group London Health Emergency said: “Suggesting that staff, who work hard enough as it is, come in and do shifts for nothing in the run up to Christmas is extraordinary.

“Nurses putting in free shifts over Christmas to get hospitals through the cash crisis tells us all we need to know about the financial chaos in the NHS.”

Speaking today Mrs Jones said: “As a trust we are legally obliged to end the year with balanced books. However, with the price of drugs and new technology going up, and demand for our services increasing, it gets harder to do. As such, we have to constantly challenge the way we work to make sure it’s as efficient as possible.

“This is an idea which came from our staff and it’s an amazing sacrifice to make. In fact, it just proves how committed our nurses, doctors and other staff are to our hospitals and to the NHS.”