The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) yesterday warned that nearly 27,000 NHS jobs have been earmarked to be cut in the UK, 18,000 of them in England, in an enormous attack on patient care.
The RCN has identified that 26,841 posts are set to be lost across the NHS.
The study was of 100 trusts out of the 400 in the NHS. The number of staff to go could well reach four times the RCN total.
The losses were revealed in an interim report from the RCN’s Frontline First campaign, drawing on information sent in by members across the UK.
The report names ten acute NHS trusts as planning to cut more than 350 posts and says Hertfordshire could lose 884 nursing and midwifery posts across its two hospitals, mental health trust and community services.
At the report’s launch, RCN Chief Executive Dr Peter Carter said: ‘A huge range of services and jobs are earmarked for cuts against this urban myth that the NHS is being protected.
‘The evidence is quite clear. That this is simply not the case.’
He added that asking nursing staff to do more for less will be demoralising, while slash and burn cuts could cause hospital waiting lists to start rising.
Dr Carter also said the cuts identified are in addition to the £15-20 billion in ‘economies’ which NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson said the service should find over the next five years.
The RCN report section on England said: ‘Our latest count shows three times as many jobs are at risk today than six months before.
‘A total of 17,932 posts are earmarked to be lost over the next four years across NHS England – a dramatic rise from the figures for April (5,600) and July (9,973).
‘These posts include nurses, midwives, health care assistants, support clinical staff, doctors, medical consultants, allied health professionals, administrative, clerical, estate and housekeeping staff.
‘But these totals do NOT include the potential jobs losses resulting from a 45 per cent reduction in management and the abolition of strategic health authorities (SHAs) and primary care trusts (PCTs) by 2013.
Examples of NHS organisations earmarking posts to go include:
• NHS Hertfordshire (four provider trusts) is modelling workforce plans that could potentially reduce its nursing and midwifery staff by 884 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) and clinical support staff by 310 WTE over the next four years
• Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust reduced its workforce by 103 WTE in 2009/10, with further plans to reduce staff costs
• Ealing Hospital NHS Trust has earmarked 34 nursing posts to be lost as a result of ward closures
• NHS Oxfordshire (five provider trusts) has forecasted a cost improvement plan which will include reducing its overall workforce by 1,900 WTE over the next four years
• Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust needs to deliver a total saving of £60m by 2015. The trust will be reducing its workforce by 200 posts this year and another 400 over the next two years
• South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has placed 91 staff ‘at risk’ of redundancy following organisational restructuring
• Portsmouth Hospital NHS Trust has a cost improvement target of £37m for 2010/11. Since October 2009 the overall reduction in substantive staff was 358 WTE, with further reductions planned for the workforce
• County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust is proposing to reduce 300 nursing jobs through natural wastage
• Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland Community Services anticipate approximately 40 to 50 employees will be dismissed by way of redundancy.’