With anger over job cuts and NHS ‘reforms’ due to dominate the Royal College of Nursing’s Annual Congress in Liverpool this week, Andrew Lansley has declined to give the health secretary’s customary address to delegates.
He is fearful of getting a hostile reception that could cost him his job as the fickle Cameron looks for a scapegoat.
ent to that meted out to former Labour health secretary Patricia Hewitt, who was heckled to a standstill in 2006, Lansley has delegated his most junior minister Anne Milton to take the strain.
It will be the first time in eight years that a health secretary has not addressed conference.
Instead he is to address a seminar on the Health and Social Care Bill as part of the coalition’s so-called ‘listening exercise’.
RCN leader Dr Peter Carter warned yesterday: ‘The NHS in England alone is having £4bn stripped out this year.
‘Last November we warned of 27,000 job cuts; we know there are a lot more to come.’
Carter said he has never known a time when so many nurses are talking of industial action.
He further warned: ‘We are seeing not just nurses, but cleaners, doctors and speech therapists’ posts being cut. That is the reality.’
The coalition’s ‘protection’ of NHS frontline patient care and services has been exposed as a myth, the RCN said yesterday.
The RCN said: ‘Until now, English Trusts that are aiming to save £20bn by 2015 have been reluctant to show the proportion of cuts to fall on frontline care.
‘However, new evidence gathered by the RCN from a sample of just 21 Trusts shows nearly 10,000 posts to be cut, of which more than half (54 per cent) are frontline clinical posts.
‘Patients will also suffer as vital services such as Family Nurse Partnerships and access to talking therapies are closed down.’
Key findings from the RCN research include:
• More than half of jobs to be cut (54 per cent) are clinical jobs including nurses, doctors and midwives.
• Nursing posts account for almost half (46 per cent) of total identified workforce cuts.
• Across the 21 Trusts, 12 per cent of the nursing establishment is set to be cut.
RCN Chief Executive & General Secretary, Dr Carter, said: ‘Clinical staff are the lifeblood of the NHS and it is haemorrhaging at an alarming rate.
‘Many Trusts are not being transparent by admitting to the proportion of clinical jobs being lost.
‘From our research we now know the truth – the majority of job losses are frontline clinical jobs, the jobs that matter to patients.
‘Cutting thousands of frontline doctors and nurses could have a catastrophic impact on patient safety and care. Our figures expose the myth that frontline staff and services are protected.’
In total, the RCN’s Frontline First campaign has identified almost 40,000 NHS posts that face the axe over the next three years.
While the RCN looked in detail at 21 Trusts, it said this represented just the tip of the iceberg as it was studying intelligence of cuts from 130 NHS organisations in England.
Dr Carter continued: ‘Our research shows that patients simply aren’t getting access to the same care they did a year ago.’
A survey of 2,000 nurses, conducted by ICM Research for the RCN, released earlier, showed overworked nurses are propping up the NHS.
It found 95 per cent of respondents work more than their contracted hours, with 22 per cent saying it happens every shift.
