Hundreds of hospital jobs axed in £250m squeeze

Hundreds of jobs will go, including front-line clinicians, and hundreds of beds will be axed as managers look for efficiency savings which the Yorkshire Post calculates will strip more than £250m in costs from hospitals across the region.

Hospitals chiefs in Leeds are planning to save £60m in the coming 12 months with measures that will lead to 700 fewer people being employed than in October.

In Hull, officials plan to make £25m in savings at the city’s hospitals with the loss of up to 300 full-time posts, while a further £19m will be saved at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw trust, along with £14m in York and £6m in Chesterfield.

Other hospitals are finalising plans to make unprecedented cost cuts of at least four per cent, as the NHS battles to find £20bn in savings in the coming four years. At the same time the biggest ever reorganisation in the NHS will be taking place.

Doctors, nurses and other groups including Liberal Democrat activists have attacked reform plans they claim will jeopardise NHS finances and patient care. There is a new warning today from the King’s Fund think-tank which says the NHS faces a £1bn squeeze from people whose social care needs will not be met by cash-hit local authorities.

David Cameron yesterday came under new pressure at Prime Minister’s Questions as Labour leader Ed Miliband claimed Government reforms were “threatening the fabric of the NHS”.

Hospital chiefs in Leeds said the savings programme was “right for Leeds teaching hospitals, our staff and the patients we serve”.

Up to nine smaller wards would be axed and 200 beds would close but the trust was “confident this will not reduce the services provided or affect access for patients”.

The chief executive of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Maggie Boyle, said every area had been scrutinised for savings.

“It has been a challenge because we are trying to do this on a planned and sustainable basis and it is a big ask for everybody in the organisation,” she said.

Staff representative Bobbie Chadwick said it was a relief the trust was not taking a “slash and burn” approach. More than 80 per cent of the job reductions have already been achieved by non- replacement of departing staff.

“It’s going to be difficult but I have every confidence we will deliver that challenge for the people of Leeds,” she said.

Hospital chiefs in Hull said the workforce was likely to fall by 250-300 through natural wastage, efficiencies and productivity improvements.

Officials in Doncaster, where savings of six per cent are planned, said schemes would include management and administrative cost reductions, energy savings and better procurement.

The finance director at York, Andrew Bertram, said its savings were part of a £32m cost reduction initiative from 2010-13.

He added: “At present we have no compulsory redundancy programme in place. Schemes include reducing our spend on overtime and on agency staff and taking advantage of posts currently being held vacant.”

Rotherham’s hospital this week said 62 jobs would go. A further 350 are being axed at the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole trust.

Mr Miliband claimed coalition plans in its Health Bill would “create a free market free-for-all and threaten existing NHS services”.

He said: “This Bill shows everything people don’t like about this Government – broken promises, arrogance, incompetence and ignoring people who know something about the health service.”

Mr Cameron said: “These reforms are about cutting bureaucracy and improving patient care.”