Fears for treatment of elderly as half of geriatric nurses face axe

The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs services for half a million people in Pontefract, Wakefield and Dewsbury, wants to cut 66 out of 139 full-time nursing positions in elderly medicine.

Unions last night warned the shake-up – part of a massive cuts programme worth 55m over the next two years – would severely hit front-line care.

It is understood the scale of losses is being exacerbated due to the opening of two new hospitals in Wakefield and Pontefract, which have fewer beds, and the collapse of plans to treat more cancer patients at Dewsbury, leaving 60 fewer beds for acutely-ill medical patients.

Kevin Terry, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "We are really concerned about the impact on patient care.

"We want to see far more detail on how this service will be re-provided and how it is proposed to care for an increasingly elderly population in this part of Yorkshire."

Mick Griffiths, of Unison, said staff were "shell-shocked and distraught".

He blamed the cuts on the "exorbitant" costs of the new hospitals, which were being built under the controversial private finance initiative.

"We have been given very flimsy details. They argue people can be treated in more appropriate settings out of hospital in the community but they've been saying that for years and if and where this will be provided is still very much a mystery," he added.

Hemsworth Labour MP Jon Trickett said he was "deeply concerned".

He and colleagues have been pressing health chiefs for years over services for the elderly due to higher levels of ill health among local people from the area's industrial legacy but there were few alternatives in the community to hospital care.

"When the Conservatives and Liberals came in they said there would be no cuts to front-line NHS services but this is proof, in a shockingly short period of time, of services being cut and job losses," he said.

The trust's savings programme aims to cut costs by a massive 15 per cent, amounting to 38m in 2010-11.

It will mean slashing the pay bill of the 7,000-strong workforce by 20m by the end of March – equivalent to 39m in a full year.

About 500 posts are expected to be affected by change including 270 vacancies which will not be filled.

The trust will also implement a major efficiency drive focusing on reducing the time patients spend in hospital.

Trust chief nurse Tracey McErlain-Burns said services would be "transformed" over the next 12 months.

More care would be available in the community. Services for the most seriously-ill patients provided by specialist centres at Pinderfields will use new models of care which would give nurses more time to care for patients.

"This level of transformation means that the number of nurses working in some clinical services will need to change.

"We have entered a period of consultation with all our staff and have made explicit a commitment to try to avoid redundancy," she added.

n Health Secretary Andrew Lansley refused to rule out a pay rise for GPs yesterday as he prepares to hand them control of NHS budgets worth 80bn.

He told MPs family doctors, who received huge pay rises in 2004 in a new contract, were best placed to know what services patients needed and he envisaged them showing greater leadership as they took on new responsibilities.