THE London Ambulance Service (LAS) announced yesterday that it plans to cut 890 jobs over the next five years.
The LAS, which is making £53 million cuts over five years, said it is cutting 560 ‘frontline jobs’, with a further 330 posts removed from management and support services.
Unison Regional Organiser Phil Thompson said: ‘These cuts are so deep they may not heal.
‘If allowed to be carried out they will put at risk the many Londoners who rely on the LAS every day.
‘With demand escalating and nearly 1,000 fewer staff no-one can now be sure of a safe service.’
London Ambulance worker and Unison Branch Secretary Eric Roberts said: ‘This is a cull of highly trained staff.
‘It is disgusting, morally wrong and unacceptable. Have they forgotten the Olympics?
‘How will we cope with the biggest sporting event in the world with hundreds fewer skilled staff?
‘All staff are frontline; without the crucial back-up services we cannot save lives.’
Brendan Kemp, gmb Southern Regional Organiser condemned the cuts. He told News Line: ‘At the moment ambulance workers are struggling to keep up with demand as it is.
‘Some of the service has already been outsourced to a private company and there have been numerous complaints about the service that this company is providing.
‘These cutbacks obviously end up putting the public in danger.
‘The coalition government is making cutbacks purely based on a paperwork exercise without looking at the true outcome of their actions which are enormously detrimental to the public.
‘These job cuts will have a knock-on effect and they must be fought and defeated.’
It has also emerged that the HSBC bank has set up a company to divert millions of pounds of NHS money into an offshore ‘tax haven’.
It has been using a tax loophole to handle the profits from private finance initiative schemes such as the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth.
In six months last year the Guernsey-based investment company HICL – which was set up by HSBC – made more than £38 million profit from its 33 PFI schemes and paid just £100,000 in UK tax – that equates to less than half of one per cent of the profits.
Mike Wilson, of Unison, said: ‘It’s a huge amount of money and it’s money that is coming from the taxpayer, so it’s safe profit.
‘This money is going to bankers who caused the financial crisis, who are now in offshore tax havens.
‘They are not paying corporation tax on the profits they are making – that is fundamentally unjust when patients are losing services and my members are losing their jobs.’
The firm – previously known as HSBC Infrastructure Company Limited – bought an 89.9 per cent stake in the Queen Alexandra Hospital (QAH) project last year.
The hospital, which was built under the Private Finance Initiative, has cut 700 jobs in the past 18 months.
Under the PFI repayment terms the hospital pays £43 million a year for 30 years.
Unison General Secretary, Dave Prentis said yesterday: ‘PFI profiteering has hit a new low.
‘It is a disgrace that private companies are hoarding massive PFI profits, milked from cash-strapped schools and hospitals, in tax havens.’
