Almost 10,000 NHS posts in England, the equivalent of a large teaching hospital, have been earmarked for cuts, the Royal College of Nursing revealed yesterday.
The RCN said that the figure ‘explodes the myth that frontline services will be protected as the NHS strives to meet severe financial challenges’.
In April this year the RCN revealed that it was aware of more than 5,000 posts being earmarked for cuts.
At the time the College warned that targeting frontline services would risk ‘sending the health service back to the days of hospital trolleys in corridors and year long waits for operations.’
The RCN said yesterday that now the number of posts under threat has doubled and that 47 NHS jobs a day are reduced or lost through not replacing vacant posts and freezes in recruitment across England.
Yesterday’s announcement comes despite government pledges to protect frontline care as the NHS seeks to make £20 billion of ‘efficiency savings’ by 2014.
RCN Chief Executive & General Secretary Dr Peter Carter said: ‘Our figures expose the myth that frontline services will be protected.’
He warned that ‘local NHS organisations appear to be adopting a slash and burn approach to jobs which is shocking and will have a disastrous effect not only on the quality of care provided and also on the range of treatments that are available.
‘If this trend for cuts continues the NHS will soon be straining at the seams.
‘Today we implore Trusts to consider the impact on patient care of these post closures – we have found little evidence of this consideration during our work.’
The RCN examined board papers from hundreds of NHS Trusts, along with reports from its regional offices. It found the following:
• 9,973 posts were earmarked for redundancies, vacancy freezes, natural wastage, downgrading of job roles, ceasing the use of agency and temporary staff
• Over 100 NHS providers facing financial pressure with many facing delivering between £1 million to £35 million in savings over the next financial year
• Several Trusts are reviewing skill mix so that non-registered staff provide more care
• Trusts are actively re-banding or down-banding posts in order to secure savings
• Some Trusts are making compulsory redundancies
Examples of posts earmarked for cuts include: a. Nottinghamshire Community Health (part of Nottinghamshire County NHS PCT), 200 posts; b. East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, 105 posts; c. Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, 300 posts; d. Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, 250 posts; e. Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, 470 posts; f. Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, 182 posts; g. Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital NHS Trust, 340 posts; h. Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, 677 posts.
